Israel's comptroller to kickstart October 7 probe without IDF approval

State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman on Thursday dismissed IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi’s objections to his conducting a probe into the military’s October 7 failures while the war is still being fought.

He demanded that Halevi meet with him one-on-one in the near future to finalize the details of how the IDF will cooperate with the comptroller’s probe.

Halevi on Wednesday rejected the comptroller’s request from earlier this month to turn over various internal military documents as part of a probe into the state’s failures that allowed Hamas’s October 7 invasion to occur.

The IDF was undertaking its own probe, he had said previously, and it has been supportive of a postwar state commission of inquiry, but distracting the IDF mid-war with handling inquiries by the State Comptroller’s Office would be dangerous.

There was “no precedent for undertaking the kind of probe that you specified” mid-war, and in the past, similar probes only took place postwar, Halevi said.

Furthermore, he said, such a probe would “distract the attention of commanders from the war, would harm the ability and quality of the IDF’s ongoing operational probe, and it would prevent the learning of lessons, which is necessary to achieve the goals of the war.”

As such, Halevi said, Englman should delay his probe until a later date.

Englman dismissed Halevi’s arguments, saying there were ways to keep aspects of the probe anonymous and to handle it in a sensitive way so as not to disrupt IDF officers from prosecuting the war.

As of press time, the IDF had not decided whether to accept Englman’s demand for a meeting.

Theoretically, Halevi could agree to hold a meeting but still refuse to cooperate.

IDF chief, comptroller's clash could end in High Court

Furthermore, Halevi has strongly implied that he would resign sometime in 2024 over the October 7 failures, something that could also be used to delay Englman’s probe.

If the sides remain at loggerheads, the issue could even go to the High Court of Justice, though this in and of itself would also take time.

The comptroller had not rushed to be public on this issue initially, but after his requests for information to perform his probe to the IDF, the Mossad, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), and the National Security Council were leaked to the media, and he was attacked as politicizing the process, he said his probe would be professional and nonpartisan.

Since the war has gone on for so long, and aspects of it have slowed down enough, Englman has said he could not wait any longer to probe the October 7 failures, having waited months.

He has been accused of initiating the probe to dump the blame for October 7 on the defense establishment, while serving as a veneer for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hide behind to avoid a state commission of inquiry, which might hit the prime minister harder.

Although Englman has issued some hard-hitting reports and is well respected internationally on climate change and cybersecurity issues, his defense of Netanyahu on legal-corruption issues early in his term and that he is not a former judge have left allegations hovering over him that he is a Netanyahu lieutenant.