Israel’s top court orders gov’t to explain failure to conduct independent probe into October 7 attacks
Israel’s High Court has ordered the government to explain why it has not established an independent state commission of inquiry into Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports.
The conditional order comes in response to multiple petitions arguing that only a state commission can credibly examine the intelligence, military and political failures surrounding the attack.
Netanyahu’s government has instead established a nonstate inquiry with limited authority, a decision that has drawn criticism from families of Israeli captives as well as former officials.
The court has given Netanyahu, Justice Minister Yariv Levin and the government until January 4 to submit their responses, Haaretz said.
Syria, Israel’s UN envoys clash after Netanyahu’s ‘provocative’ visit to Israeli-occupied territory
The Syrian and Israeli ambassadors have had a testy exchange at a meeting of the UN Security Council, just hours after Benjamin Netanyahu visited an Israeli military outpost inside Syria.
Ibrahim Olabi, Syria’s UN envoy, said his government “strongly condemns this provocative tour, which epitomises Israel’s ongoing aggression against Syria and its people”. “We renew our calls on the UN and this council to take firm and immediate action to halt these violations, ensure their non-recurrence, end the occupation and enforce relevant resolutions, particularly the 1974 Disengagement Agreement.”
In response, Israel’s Danny Danon did not directly address Netanyahu’s trip to the part of southern Syria that his country occupies. Instead, he lectured his Syrian counterpart on what his country should do. “This council has heard Syria’s pledge of reform and reconciliation, but promises alone do not rebuild nations,” Danon said, adding that it was up to Damascus to prove it would protect minorities like the Druze and end what he called “the cycle of indiscriminate killing”.
Olabi retorted that it was actually Israel who had to prove itself before the international community. “You have struck Syria more than a thousand times. And we have responded with requests for diplomacy. … We have responded with zero signs of aggression towards Israel,” he said, after switching to English to deliver his follow-up remarks.
“We have engaged constructively and we still wait for you to do the same,” he concluded.
The countries are currently negotiating a security pact.
