Protesters in Tel Aviv, including opposition leaders, demand Oct. 7 state commission of inquiry

Five leaders of opposition parties joined thousands of protesters who packed into Tel Aviv’s Habima Square on Saturday night to demand a state commission of inquiry into the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023.

The protest took place alongside the weekly demonstration at the nearby Hostages Square, where thousands demanded the return of the three remaining slain captives held in Gaza. That protest included speeches from two freed hostages and relatives of other captives.

The protest at Habima Square sought to unite Zionist opposition parties behind the demand for a state commission, which would be led by the judiciary, less than a week after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government voted to launch its own self-mandated inquiry.

The protest was organized for the second straight week by the October Council, which is made up of families who lost loved ones in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack and are demanding a state probe.

In attendance was former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who is considered the most credible challenger to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Also at the protest were Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, and MKs Benny Gantz, Gadi Eisenkot and Yair Golan, all of whom lead centrist or left-wing parties opposed to Netanyahu. Avigdor Liberman, head of the hawkish opposition Yisrael Beytenu faction, who has undertaken efforts to coordinate between the anti-Netanyahu parties, did not attend.

Former minister Izhar Shay, whose son Yaron was killed fending off the October 7 attack, called on the opposition leaders to insist on a state commission following next year’s election.

“I call on the leaders of the opposition parties to officially commit not to join after the election any government that does not promise in its basic guidelines to establish a state commission of inquiry immediately upon taking office,” said Shay, who served in Gantz’s Blue and White party.

He further called on potential investigators and witnesses to refuse to cooperate with the government-run probe, which he called a “whitewashing” committee. Critics of the effort say that the government that was in power on October 7 shouldn’t control the committee that investigates the attack.

“Don’t appear before a committee that has a mark of shame hanging over it and the blood of the fallen and murdered smeared on the hands of its creators,” Shay said.

A column of protesters marching to the demonstration from Kaplan Street carried a large banner reading, “Wanted: a strong, united opposition.”

Referring to Netanyahu, they chanted: “It’s time to topple the tyrant.”

Right-wing youths started yelling at attendees and getting into shoving matches with some of them as the rally kicked off. They were pushed slightly back by the police and continued jeering and whistling.

A large screen on the square’s eastern side, on which speeches were broadcast, showed the names and pictures of some of the 1,200 people killed in the October 7 attack, alongside questions about the circumstances of their death.

The crowd cheered for each of the opposition leaders in attendance as the MC, bereaved father and former Beit Shean mayor Rafi Ben Shitrit of the October Council, read their names. Gantz, who joined Netanyahu’s government after the October 7 attack, also drew some jeers.

Also in attendance were representatives of the anti-corruption watchdog Movement for Quality Government, anti-government reservists’ and veterans’ groups, and activists who stood in silence along the square’s western side holding candles and clutching placards with pictures and names of Palestinian children killed during the war in Gaza.

Adi Zakuto, whose father Avi was murdered in the southern city of Ofakim during the onslaught, said what “burns me today, more than the pain, is the thing my dad hated more than anything – evading accountability.”

The ministerial panel established this week to determine the scope of the governmental probe is “a political commission of the investigated trying to decide who will investigate them,” she said.

“My father was murdered because of a debacle. There are people who are responsible for that debacle,” she said. “Whoever was part of the failures can’t write the rulebook of the investigation. Whoever took Israel back to the age when citizens were prey cannot determine what can be asked and what can’t be probed.”

“In the name of my father, in the name of everyone who is no longer here, the kidnapped, rescued, wounded… don’t let them get away,” said Zakuto. “Don’t let them rewrite history. Don’t let them turn October 7 into another campaign.”

“Truth will out; I won’t let anyone bury it,” she declared.

Tali Biner, who survived the October 7 massacre at the Nova music festival, stressed what she said is the nonpartisan nature of the demand for a state commission of inquiry, which Netanyahu rejects because it is established by the judiciary, which his government has sought to weaken.

Addressing the government, Biner said: “We are not the enemy, and this is not politics.”

“Whoever tries to portray this as political is a person who despises truth,” she added. “We are the citizens whose security you were responsible for.”

Three remaining slain hostages

Bar Godard, the daughter of the slain hostage Meny Godard, whose body was returned from Hamas captivity last week as part of the Gaza ceasefire, called on the hundreds gathered at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square to keep pressure on the government to ensure the return of the remains of the three deceased hostages — Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, Dror Or and Sudthisak Rinthalak — still in Gaza.

“The return of the deceased is not a favor to the families. It’s the most basic duty the State of Israel has to its citizens… A duty our leadership has forgotten again and again, and that we’ve reminded them of again and again,” she told the hundreds-strong crowd.

She added that “the sad thing is that our enemy understands us better than our own leadership.”

“The terrorists who snatched my father are not the ones who murdered him. He was murdered in the morning and abducted hours later. Why? Because they knew the citizens of Israel don’t give up on their dead,” she said. “They knew our mutual accountability is deeper than our leaders’ cynicism.”

Or’s brother Elad demanded at the rally that the government “honor our basic, moral and civil right, after our security was violated and trampled again and again in these long years of abandonment,” and bring home the bodies of the three remaining deceased hostages.

“There will be no Israeli rehabilitation without Sudthisak, Dror, and Ran at home,” he said. “We’re tired and we’ve been through so much — but we believe. The fragile ceasefire must not break down.”

Other speakers included Sylvia Cunio, mother of released hostages David and Ariel Cunio; Gania Erlich Zohar, aunt of the slain hostage Cpt. Omer Neutra, whose body was returned earlier this month, freed hostages Raz and Ohad Ben Ami, and Ziv Tsioni, the uncle of Gvili.

“Just days before the last [ceasefire] deal, Raz and I met with [US] President [Donald] Trump, the most powerful man in the world, to ask him to save the hostages and return the deceased,” said Ohad Ben Ami, who was released during a ceasefire in February. “From here, I urge him to ensure that the work he led is completed fully. His life’s mission is our lives.”