Herzog said to host secret talks with bereaved families on forming Oct. 7 state probe |
President Isaac Herzog has been quietly convening consultations in recent months at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem aimed at reaching an agreement for establishing a widely sought state commission of inquiry into the failures surrounding the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre, Channel 12 reported on Wednesday, without citing any sources.
According to the report, participants in the closed-door discussions have included representatives of bereaved families from the so-called October Council — a large group of families who lost loved ones on October 7 and who are calling for a state probe — and with members of the hawkish Gvura Forum, which represents dozens of families of soldiers killed in the ensuing two-year war against Hamas in Gaza.
The unsourced report alleged that the four representatives of the two forums — Yehoshua Shani and Menachem Klemenson of the Gvura Forum, and Eyal Eshel and Reut Hecht-Edri of the October Council — were required to sign confidentiality agreements barring them from disclosing the existence of the meetings or their contents.
The group has been meeting once every two weeks, Channel 12 reported, and as recently as within the past month.
Herzog has long insisted that the only correct way to probe Israel’s failures in the months and years before October 7 is through a state commission of inquiry, even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government........