The Knesset War Room solidified in the days following the October 7 massacre, and by October 10, most of the MKs had split up into work teams.
Their work, first and foremost, was to help people or groups with specific needs for aid by either putting them in contact with the relevant government agency, providing them with equipment from the Ramat Gan warehouse, or putting them in contact directly with donors.
However, the MKs also used legislation as a tool to provide aid. During the first weeks after the massacre, many people were designated as missing, and their families, as well as families of people who had been taken captive by Hamas, ceased to function. The need for immediate financial aid for these families arose.
A law proposal was quickly drawn up and placed on the Knesset plenum floor on October 23, with the support of approximately 80 MKs. By November 6, it passed into law. Welfare Ministry officials requested that the legislation wait in order to attempt an executive solution. However, the legislation passed its four readings faster than what the Welfare Ministry could have acted on, according to one Knesset official.
Another focal point of activity during the first few weeks was at Ben Gurion Airport. MKs realized that customs officials were not enabling donated equipment to enter the country tax-free. MK Michal Woldiger (RZP), who was Deputy Finance Minister at the time, set up a temporary office at the airport to overcome the hurdles.
During the first few weeks, the Knesset War Room's central WhatsApp group, the text of which the Jerusalem Post obtained in its entirety, focused mostly on MKs attending funerals, requests for equipment, and general updates regarding the War Room's operation.
Flaws in Israel's emergency response
Other, more specific issues were addressed in WhatsApp groups of each specific team. The tone was professional, and at times when disputes flared up, MK Pnina Tameno-Shete (National Unity), the main coordinator of the War Room, was quick to put them out.
However, the messages gradually show growing frustration with the government's performance, and a number of MKs and officials spoke about this issue at length.
The government has the power to enact emergency regulations in order to overcome much legislation and free up public workers to begin treating the flood of requests that came pouring in. While some ministers sprang into action, the majority were slow to respond.
Tameno-Shete said that as Aliyah and Integration Minister in the previous government, she had been responsible for treating the thousands of new immigrants, making Aliyah from both Russia and Ukraine after the former invaded the latter in February 2022. The large number of immigrants forced her ministry to enter emergency mode. However, proper treatment involved other ministers as well, and cross-ministerial work was slow to take off.
Tameno-Shete said she realized at the time that there were no emergency regulations for each ministry to follow in times of emergency. An agency formed after the Second Lebanon War to address this issue, called RACHEL (an acronym for National Emergency Authority), was part of the defense ministry and was under-budgeted and understaffed. Tameno-Shete said that she raised the issue with then-prime minister Naftali Bennett, but it did not receive serious attention.
The ministries that did spring into action were ones that were better prepared for the situation. These included the Welfare Ministry in general and the National Insurance Institute (NII) in particular. A Number of MKs mentioned Welfare and Social Affairs Minister Ya'acov Margi and representatives of the NII as functioning well and "recovering from the shock" relatively quickly.
Another ministry that functioned relatively well, according to two MKs, was the Health Ministry and Public Health System, which was just two years removed from the prolonged COVID-19 emergency situation. Health Minister Uriel Busso immediately appointed a project manager to be in direct contact with the Knesset War Room in order to enable the quick relay of medical-related requests for aid.
However, according to the MKs, most ministries were overwhelmed and unable to cope with the complexity and scope of the issues at hand. Especially lacking, some MKs said, was the ability to oversee the ministries as a whole and coordinate between them – a role parallel to what Tameno-Shete was doing in the Knesset. The day-to-day management of government ministries normally falls to the director generals of each office, and the general coordination was primarily the responsibility of the Director General of the Prime Minister's Office, Yossi Shelley, the MKs explained.
And this, a number of MKs said, was the heart of the problem. Director generals are personal appointments by ministers, and Shelley, along with many other director generals, were appointed due to their connections and simply did not have the necessary qualifications to run such an operation, the MKs said.
A number of MKs and a Knesset official said that they believed that the quality of Israel's public service had been deteriorating for years, and the current government exemplified this. They pointed to the Transportation Ministry as an example, where Minister Miri Regev appointed a Likud confidante, Moshe Ben-Zaken, to serve as director-general.
Ben-Zaken had some managerial experience and, after initially being disqualified by a vetting committee, eventually accepted the position. But Ben-Zaken did not have the necessary skills to run the enormous and complex ministry during an emergency – and therefore, the Knesset War Room and a number of similar civilian initiatives found themselves organizing transportation for soldiers, reservists, and equipment organizing charter flights to bring Israelis back to the country after many flights were canceled at the start of the war; and many other issues.
One MK pointed out that despite its over 30 ministers, the government needed to resort to a "project manager," Moshe Edri, to run the Tekuma Directorate, which was tasked with coordinating the treatment of the evacuated Gaza border communities. The fact that such a project manager was needed and that the ministries weren't able to do it themselves was an example of the government's poor performance.
The Knesset War Room continued to operate through November. By that time, the requests for aid had slowed to a trickle, and the government had begun to provide systemic solutions both in executive action and in legislation. On December 11, Knesset Speaker MK Amir Ohana (Likud) hosted a low-key closing ceremony.
The Knesset War Room, according to one estimate, treated approximately 16,000 requests for aid in two months. It represented, on the one hand, a rare unified political body that included rivals working shoulder to shoulder. Where it succeeded, it did so based on the personal capabilities of MKs working individually or as a team. However, perhaps the most important takeaway from the Post's investigation is that the War Room should not have been necessary in the first place.
Even in regular times, MKs receive many requests for aid, and it is only natural that in a state of emergency, these will increase. However, it is the role of the government, not the legislature, to coordinate the state's response to the emergency. The depth and breadth of the MK's involvement, in addition to a plethora of civilian initiatives, highlighted the chaos and, at times, ineptitude of some of the country's leadership. Amongst all of the failures of October 7, this, too, should be thoroughly investigated by a National Commission of Inquiry, and the sooner, the better.