(Adnkronos) – Israel’s High Court of Justice has blocked with an interim order the investigation by the State Comptroller and Ombudsman, Matanyahu Englman, into internal responsibilities for the failure to protect against the bloody attacks of October 7, 2023, by Hamas.
The Court ordered Englman not to summon officials to testify or provide documentation to his Office, and also not to publish even a draft report on the conclusions he may have drawn so far.
The order is based, according to what the judges wrote, on an agreement between the Comptroller and state entities, including the IDF, from April, with the framework validated by the Court for the investigation. The Comptroller is also ordered to justify investigations in the areas of policy and strategy.
“A catastrophic event of exceptional dimensions like October 7 requires a comprehensive, independent, and impartial investigation only by a State inquiry commission,” declared the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, one of the organizations that had called for the halt of the Comptroller’s investigation, who was appointed, among other things, by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which rejects all efforts to create the commission. The Comptroller’s investigation, the petitioners denounced, compromises evidence, violates due process rights, and serves “to avoid the establishment of an inquiry commission.”
