Anti-government protesters held weekly protests Saturday evening in Tel Aviv and elsewhere, with the relative of a hostage kidnapped to Gaza on October 7, 2023, and later murdered in captivity, slamming the coalition’s legislation to form a politically appointed commission of inquiry into the failures that enabled the Hamas onslaught rather than a state commission.

The bill is expected to come up this week for its first of three Knesset plenum votes, a report said Saturday.

A state committee, Israel’s highest investigative authority and the one surveys have consistently shown is preferred by the public to probe October 7, comprises independent experts appointed by the chief justice.

According to the draft law, the coalition and opposition would each appoint three members of the six-member commission. But even if the opposition refuses to appoint members for the panel, as it says it will, the commission could still operate with just the coalition-appointed members, according to the legislation.

At a 500-strong anti-government protest in Tel Aviv’s Habima Square, Ayala Metzger, daughter-in-law of 80-year-old Yoram, railed against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s failure to call for a state commission, saying that “as time passes, the questions just pile up.”

“The political, populist, fascist committee of inquiry… would comprise three coalition representatives and three opposition representatives,” Metzger said. “If the opposition members happen to refuse to take part in this perverse conduct, the three coalition members will act as the committee and probe the crimes they themselves are responsible for.”

Also on Saturday evening, Channel 12 reported that the bill is likely to be brought for its first reading in the Knesset this week.

The bill passed a preliminary hearing in December but has been fiercely criticized........

© The Times of Israel