Marking 800 days since they were abducted, 22 former hostages on Sunday demanded the government either establish a state commission of inquiry into the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, or resign.

The demand, made in a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was also signed by dozens of members of 49 hostages’ families, some of whose loved ones were killed in captivity.

“We call on the government of Israel to stop evading, stop procrastinating, stop whitewashing and to immediately establish a full state commission of inquiry,” read the missive, which was put together by the October Council, a group of families of October 7 victims.

The public campaign for the commission “will only escalate in the coming days,” said the group.

The commission would need to “investigate all aspects of that day, including the collapse of the defense and intelligence arrays, the cries for help that went unanswered, the abandonment of [Gaza] border communities for hours on end, and the abandonment of civilians and soldiers to the inferno that unfolded within the State of Israel,” the letter read.

“But no less than that, it must investigate what happened after October 7,” it added. “Decision-making in the negotiations for the hostages’ return, the reasons for the repeated delays, the coordination between the political and military establishments, the statements and actions of all public........

© The Times of Israel