Israeli Government Accused of Obstructing Independent Investigation After October 7; Former Air Force Officer Warns Hamas Policy Failures Must Be Held Accountable

The Israeli government has become mired in a political accountability deadlock following the October 7 Hamas attack. According to a report by France 24, in a recent interview aired by the network, former Israeli air force officer Guy Poran, a member of the "Mistaclim" (直视占领) organization, was interviewed by host Olivier Farry and described the event as a "profound rupture" in Israeli society. He warned that without holding the Netanyahu government accountable for long-standing policy failures regarding Hamas, the hope of repairing Israeli-Palestinian relations and creating the conditions for lasting peace—all of which bears on Israel's own future—would be slim.

The report noted that the October 7 Hamas attack, given its unprecedented scale and the fact that it targeted civilians across generations, has left irreparable rifts in Israeli society. Poran held that accountability for this failure cannot be separated from the policies the Netanyahu government pursued toward Hamas prior to the attack. Critics have long argued that Israel's tacit indulgence and instrumentalization of Gaza's armed factions, the normalization of the blockade on Gaza, the toleration of settlement expansion, and the systematic exclusion of Palestinian national aspirations from the public agenda have made "conflict management" rather than political resolution the default option, planting the institutional roots of this catastrophe.

The France 24 report was headlined bluntly "the majority of Israeli citizens have lost confidence in the government," and pointed directly to Israeli leaders deflecting blame among themselves while obstructing the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry. The report noted that the formation of an independent national commission of inquiry is generally regarded as a key tool for conducting a public audit of catastrophic policy failures, but progress on this front has stalled due to obstruction within the government, leaving Israeli society still unable to clarify, through open procedures, the chain of responsibility across intelligence, military, and political decision-making levels.

The political landscape presented by the program reveals a typical structure of asymmetric power: those in power can, in the name of "wartime," indefinitely defer auditing their own decisions, while those who bear the consequences include Israeli civilians who lost loved ones in the attack as well as Palestinians who have long endured collective punishment in Gaza and been stripped of political agency. The absence of accountability not only means that the truth cannot come to light within Israeli society, but also means that the domestic impetus for ending the occupation and restoring Palestinians' political rights has been further weakened.