High Court freezes comptroller probe into October 7 security failures

The High Court of Justice on Sunday froze the State Comptroller’s probe of the IDF’s October 7 failures until at least sometime when a hearing on the dispute will be held in July, and possibly for much longer.

The dispute pits Comptroller Matanyahu Englman against IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi, with Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara already having taken Halevi’s side.

Dating back to January, Halevi rejected the comptroller’s request to turn over a variety of internal military documents as part of a probe into the state’s failures that allowed Hamas’s October 7 invasion to occur.

Halevi has repeatedly noted that the IDF was undertaking its own probe and that the IDF has been supportive of a post-war state commission of inquiry, but that distracting the IDF mid-war with handling comptroller inquiries would be dangerous.

When can the internal probes be expected?

In fact, the IDF’s internal probes of October 7 are set to be publicized on a rolling basis from mid-July through August.Based on the delay of the comptroller’s probe, this could leave room for Englman to start a probe later in August or September.The IDF chief had said there was “no precedent for undertaking the kind of probe which you specified” mid-war, such that all parallel prior comptroller probes only took place post-war.

In addition, Halevi had stated such a probe would “distract the attention of commanders from the war; and would harm the ability and quality of the IDF’s ongoing operational probe, and it would prevent the learning of lessons, which is necessary in order to achieve the goals of the war.”

As such, Halevi had recommended that Englman delay his probe until a later date.

The High Court sided with Halevi and with the petitioners, the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, and Israel’s Defensive Shield Forum, who jumped to the IDF’s assistance, formally asking the High Court to block Englman.

After reviewing the submissions of the respondents and confidential opinions submitted by security officials, Justice Gila Canfy-Steinitz determined that “until the hearing of the petition, in view of the complex security reality, the planned scope of investigation that will deal with... the combat support system and core operational issues, and in view of the preparation required to give answers at this time – while giving significant weight to the confidential opinions of the security officials that were submitted for consideration – I am ordering the suspension of the investigation procedures as they relate to the IDF and the Shin Bet [Israel Security Agency].”

The Shin Bet piece of the dispute has been less public since it is unclear that whatever the comptroller might find about the Shin Bet would be something that could be made public at any late date.

Englman had ignored all objections, 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 officials from prosecuting the war.

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

However, he has been attacked as initiating the probe in order to dump the blame for October 7 on the defense establishment, while serving as a veneer for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hide behind, so as 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 cyber issues, his defenses of Netanyahu on legal corruption issues early in his term, and the fact that he was not a former judge, have left allegations hovering over him that he is a Netanyahu lieutenant.

The Movement for the Quality of Government in Israel followed its initial victory with a parallel new petition to compel the government to initiate a full state inquiry.