Three people were detained on Monday after a small group of activists tried to block the entrance to the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem while calling for the creation of a state commission of inquiry into the failures surrounding the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

The activists were the first of a series of groups that plan to protest government meetings and individual politicians this week in opposition to the government’s contentious plan to create a politically appointed committee to investigate the worst massacre in Israel’s history.

The protest plans were coalescing as the Ministerial Committee for Legislation advanced a bill submitted by Likud MK Ariel Kallner that would set up the government’s investigatory committee. Ministers are also meeting on Monday to determine the mandate of the government’s inquiry into the attack.

Under the law, a state commission of inquiry, headed by the judiciary, is the country’s highest investigatory body. Polls have shown that most Israelis want a state commission to investigate the October 7 attack. Critics have slammed the government’s plan to set up its own investigatory commission because the current coalition was in power when the attack occurred, meaning that the government would be creating an investigation to probe its own actions.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is leading the group that will set the investigation’s guidelines, has claimed that the public would not trust a state commission because its members would be chosen by the judiciary, which his government has sought to weaken through a series of controversial laws. As recently as 2022, Netanyahu had backed a state commission of inquiry into the conduct of the previous government.

He and his allies argue that........

© The Times of Israel