'No one taking responsibility': Sa'ar, Liberman testify at civil investigation committee

Opposition party leaders Gideon Sa’ar (National Unity) and Avigdor Liberman (Yisrael Beytenu) testified in Tel Aviv on Sunday at the civil investigation committee into the events leading up to, during, and after the October 7 Hamas massacre.

Sa’ar, who served as a minister in four different governments and as government secretary in two others, joined the current government days after October 7 but quit in March over criticism that the government was not taking sufficient action to destroy Hamas’s military and governing capabilities.

Sa’ar began by saying that the massacre was a result of “mistaken strategic navigation” that lasted 30 years, since the Oslo Accords in the mid-1990s. These 30 years included “12 years of retreats and then 18 years of containment,” he said.

During the first period, which included the Oslo Accords, the retreat from Lebanon in 2000, and the Disengagement from Gaza in 2005, “the loss of intelligence and operational control was dramatic, and by retreating, Israel enabled the establishment of terror armies at its northern and southern borders,” Sa’ar said.

During the second period, which was one of “containment,” Sa’ar continued, “there was agreement in political and security circles on the need to give ‘goodies’ to Hamas,” which included allowing Qatari money to enter the Gaza Strip or enabling workers from Gaza to work in Israel. This was a mistake, Sa’ar said, and part of the “conception” that Hamas was deterred and uninterested in a flare-up of violence.

This conception still prevails on the northern front, Sa’ar argued.

“If the Galilee has been empty for 10 and a half months, we are continuing to contain. This needs to be understood in depth,” Sa’ar explained. “Whoever says, ‘Let’s finish the war; we have a munitions problem; we are not at an optimal point; the army is exhausted… I ask whoever says this: is it clear to us that the other side will use a ceasefire to rearm, perhaps more effectively than we would? Are we sure that when we return, there will be no additional fronts on top of the current ones?”

Sa’ar said that while the government’s judicial reforms in 2023 contributed to the security deterioration by increasing the infighting within Israeli society, the massacre could have nonetheless occurred on a different government’s watch.

“I was among those who warned that the judicial reform, in the way in which it was carried out, increased our national security risks. In the eyes of our enemies, there are two factors that they are always watching for – the extent of internal divisions and the relationship with the United States... Having said this, their wish to destroy us exists and will [continue to] exist, no matter which government there was or will be,” Sa’ar said.

“I disagree with some of my friends who were with me in the previous government, and today are with me in the opposition, who said that October 7 would not have happened under their watch. I have my doubts,” he added.

Liberman testifies 

LIBERMAN, WHO served as defense minister under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu between 2016 and 2018, testified that after taking office in 2016 and requesting to see the raw intelligence material on Gaza, he became convinced that Hamas was planning an attack and drafted an 11-page document outlining “exactly” what ended up happening on October 7. Liberman said that his initial estimation was that the attack would occur during 2022 but he was off by a year “due to COVID-19.” He presented the document to the prime minister and national security cabinet, but they were not convinced of the urgency to act to prevent it.

Liberman testified that in 2018, he called to carry out an operation called “Musical Chairs” to wipe out Hamas’s leaders in Gaza after they fired 500 rockets at southern Israel. Instead, the chief of staff at the time, MK Gadi Eisenkot (National Unity), convinced the national security cabinet to launch “Northern Defender,” an operation to destroy cross-border tunnels on the Lebanese border. Liberman said it was a “fake” operation since it only entailed blocking tunnel shafts on the Israeli side of the border. Liberman claimed that the operation was not an appropriate response to the threat on the southern border, which was part of the reason he quit his post shortly afterward.

The former defense minister also harshly criticized the current government’s conduct.

“The prime minister does not talk to the defense minister, who does not talk to the national security minister. Routine [times] cannot be run this way, all the more so during war. The prime minister and defense minister should talk a few times a day. This is insanity,’ Liberman said.

He also criticized policy decisions, noting that when he served as defense minister, he made two key decisions: building shelters in the North at a cost of NIS 5 billion and forming a new “Rocket Corps” in the IDF. Liberman said that both decisions were frozen immediately after his resignation but “had they continued with those decisions, we would have faced the event [of October 7] under completely different circumstances.”

The probe was announced last month by families of those killed on October 7, representatives from the attacked kibbutzim, and civil society groups. One of the primary goals of the committee, composed of legal and security experts, is to initiate the foundation of a state probe, which the political echelon has said will only be formed once the war is over.

Eve Young contributed to this report.