The High Court for Justice handed down an interim order on December 31, 2025, halting State Comptroller and Ombudsman Matanyahu Englman from continuing his investigation into the failures of October 7, 2023, and prohibiting him from publishing any reports, partial or completed.
With this decision, the court upheld a framework for the comptroller’s investigation agreed upon last April. The court especially demanded Engelman to justify any investigation by his office into areas of policy and strategy.
While this seems like a simple matter of insisting that the comptroller stick to what was accepted previously, it was obvious that the court was asserting its primacy as the adjudicator over the spheres of investigation. As interpreted by the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, a petitioner in the matter, the October 7 event “requires a comprehensive, independent and nonpartisan investigation.” And that is the investigation the court wants to oversee in practice.
The injunction issued by the court specified several topics that were to be off-limits, which included: security preparations that were in place for the Nova music festival; what was had been planned for the South regarding defending it from possible attack – cities and other civic spaces, specifically in the Gaza border area; and how did the intelligence community and the political echelon prepare for any military emergency.
However, the decision was nevertheless seen to be confrontational. Chairman of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, Simcha Rothman, was angry. He pointed out that the State Comptroller’s Office draws its authority from a Basic Law. As such, he claimed, it is equal in rank and status to the court’s authority, which also is rooted in a Basic Law.
As stated in the law legislating the establishment of the comptroller (paragraph 6): “In the performance of his functions, the state comptroller shall be accountable to the Knesset alone.” As Rothman pointed out, the comptroller is, in fact, “supposed to be the one who also scrutinizes the judges and the judicial authority.” Was there a conflict of interest?
Since the state comptroller is now stymied – and as the government is seeking to appoint its own version of a committee of investigation that is vigorously opposed – all that is left for us citizens to discuss openly at this stage is to assist such a future commission of inquiry with outlining the agenda items for its work.
Taking that into consideration, permit me to offer some suggestions for that investigation’s agenda as to the questions that require answers and explanations.
Main categories of an investigation into October 7
I would divide the topics into three main categories. The first would be the backdrop that would seek to answer the question: how did Israel arrive to the point of being inadequately prepared for the Hamas attack? This includes the political and diplomatic scene as well as the adoption of decisions over the past few years.
How did army intelligence arrive at the understanding that Hamas was deterred? Was there a better approach to decreasing Hamas’s aggressiveness than allowing Qatar money in? On whose recommendation was that decision made? Did a post-Oslo Accords mindset of the political and military decision-makers affect the decision?
In October 2024, Prof. Efraim Karsh suggested that October 7 was the result of a 30-year “peace process” atmosphere that progressively led to an “emasculation of the IDF’s military capabilities,” meaning a serious reduction in field equipment, most recently under three commanders-in-chief, as well as a weakened combative/offensive ethos. Was this indeed the case?
Why were forces thinned out along the border? Was building the Gaza fence barrier the correct decision? Was the over $1 billion expense properly overseen? Was it worth it?
Regarding the accepted perception of relying on technologies, who was involved in making those decisions? Were any ground invasion exercises carried out? What were the combat doctrines to which officers were trained? Who removed rifles from the communities neighboring Gaza and why?
A second area of investigation is regarding the events of the months preceding October 7. What were the contents of all the warnings that were provided to higher-ups? Why were they either not taken seriously or outrightly rejected? Who ignored the information regarding the “Walls of Jericho” plan? Who reviewed the video footage?
Did any intelligence officer insist that the information was significant enough to be raised at a higher command level? Was there a control system to challenge systemic perceptions and concepts in place, and if so, why did it not work?
Who of the senior command, if anyone, saw the videos of Hamas training exercises and paid them no real attention – or worse, excused them as “for show”? Did the campaign of civil disobedience and attempts at military service refusals, demonstrating the unravelling of Israel’s sociopolitical fabric, play any role in encouraging Hamas or even affecting the army’s operational capabilities? If so, to what extent?
The third area is the approximately 36-hours period of battle during October 6-7. What were the contents of the various emergency phone consultations until the early morning hours of Oct. 7? What did “Green Sardine” – the alleged informant of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) – report and to whom? Was there a consultation at an isolated area of Ben-Gurion Airport on September 28, two weeks before the massacre, between personnel of Israel’s Foreign Ministry and National Security Council with Egyptian informants that included a warning that the situation in Gaza was “explosive” and to whom that report was passed on?
Furthermore, how did the IDF’s command and control network collapse? Where were the critical staff people? Awake or asleep? What exactly caused early warning systems to fail? Were any dedicated systems closed that would have produced intelligence on Hamas and if so, why?
And finally, who managed the chaos displayed by the Gaza Division, the Southern Command, the Air Force, and the Operations Brigade during the first 36 hours? What was the role of IDF chief of staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi and Shin Bet head Ronen Bar in the most disorderly command performance of recent memory?
All of these questions and more should be answered by any commission of inquiry.
The writer is a researcher, analyst, and commentator on political, cultural, and media issues.