The State Comptroller’s Office instructed, in a letter sent Tuesday, that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff send over transcripts of meetings as part of a review of the cabinet’s functioning in the years leading up to the Israel-Hamas war after the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) refused the comptroller’s first request to send them.
The PMO said that the High Court’s decision to stop the comptroller’s review of the IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) meant they could not send the materials, which include meetings with security officials, according to the comptroller’s office.
The High Court of Justice on Sunday froze the state comptroller’s probe of the IDF’s October 7 failures until a hearing on the dispute will be held in July, and possibly for much longer.
In addition to the letter, the comptroller sent a request Tuesday to the High Court to hold an urgent hearing about the decision and on the PMO’s refusal to send the documents following the decision.
The PMO responded to the letter saying, “contrary to what has been claimed, we are planning to give all the material to the comptroller. In light of the contradictions between the instructions of the high court to not give materials and the request of the comptroller, we have asked for a legal opinion on the matter.”
IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi 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.
Comptroller's office indicates that turning over documents will not cause security concerns
While documents include transcripts of meetings with security officials, the comptroller’s office said that this does not mean that the probe of the PMO is frozen and does not justify the failure to provide the documents at the comptroller’s request. The comptroller also said that turning over these documents will not impact the attention of security officials and so will not cause security concerns.
The high court decision “does not refer to the PMO,” said the comptroller’s letter. “The request of documents from the PMO was done within the framework of a review our office is doing of the function of the political echelon before the war, and so there is no reason to connect this request to the aforementioned [court] decision.”
“The fact that the meetings [in the requested transcripts] were between the prime minister and IDF and Shin Bet officials, does not mean that these documents are within the purview of the High Court’s decision.”Its decision “was not intended to lead to a cessation of all reviews by the comptroller’s office of all bodies who have an affinity to the Swords of Iron War,” said the office, adding that the review of other offices who have a connection to the war is ongoing.
The comptroller’s letter also said that the PMO has been refusing to provide documents pertaining to the period before October 2021 requested by them for the past few months.
Yonah Jeremy Bob contributed to this report.