The unprecedented ramifications experienced by thousands of northern residents were worsened by government inefficiency and inactivity, a new State Comptroller Report published on Tuesday found.
Chiefly to blame are Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former director-general of the Prime Minister’s Office, Yossi Shelly, who failed to meet the task of laying out a long-term reconstruction and rehabilitation program for the northern towns, specifically to make them livable once more, reads the report.
Also to blame is Eliezer “Chayni” Marom, the Northern Project Coordinator, who failed to lay out such a plan in his five months in the position before he resigned.
In May 2024, seven months after the war began, the government approved an immediate emergency rehabilitation plan, but only select parts of it were actualized, including funding. The plan was also uncoordinated and slow. A long-term plan doesn’t exist, which is essentially what is preventing around half of the residents from returning to their homes.
Civilians living within five kilometers of the border were evacuated in October 2023, tallying at 43 towns.
This initial evacuation was extended several times, totaling 60,000 people eligible for alternate housing by July 2024.
These communities were completely split up, their private and collective homes upended. Their personal resilience was shattered, along with the communal, as well as their psychological and mental well-being.
Some, after a while, chose independently to return to the North, preferring the physical danger over the disarray, but over half said the chances of their return are low. Noteworthy is the fear that the group least likely to return is those who are academically trained and under the age of 35.
Over half of northern teenagers said they were significantly more emotionally harmed due to the situation.
As of September 2024, a ministerial committee on rehabilitation had not been established, nor a team of directors-general tasked with tracking the progress of the long-term plan.
Generally, government decisions were not actualized, both in terms of management and in terms of infrastructure and funds.
The publication is the third of its kind to examine the domestic ramifications of the October 7 massacre and the ensuing war.
Covering more than 60 topics, the State Comptroller’s Office works by three guiding principles: first, equal criticism towards all leadership levels (diplomatic, domestic, and military); second, personal responsibility to individuals who were in charge; and third, assuming that a State Commission of Inquiry is established, the comptroller will outline and divide the investigations with it.
State Comptroller's Office clashed with IDF Prosecution
The reports come as the State Comptroller’s Office has clashed with the IDF Prosecution over materials, which it says needs a thorough review. The IDF has said that the comptroller’s authority doesn’t extend that far, while State Comptroller Matanyahu Engleman has insisted that, sans a state COI, he must conduct a more comprehensive investigation.
“Obviously, the public has a right to answers to the very tough questions that October 7, the worst disaster in Israel since its creation, raised. The state comptroller will not rest until these answers are delivered, accounting for the failures on the governmental and military levels,” said the office.
No public advancements on a state COI have been recorded. One year and nine months after the massacre, hostage and bereaved families, victims, and the general public await answers.