A day after State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman summoned two former senior Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) officials for questioning under threat of sanctions, a key figure from the October 7 intelligence failure informed Englman on Monday that he would not appear.
This development further deepens the confrontation over delayed investigations into the Hamas massacre and adds to the mounting frustration of bereaved families who say no meaningful probe has yet begun.
The State Comptroller’s Office announced on Sunday that it had issued formal summonses to two former Shin Bet officials who held key positions before and on the day of the attack.
The letters were sent after months of attempts to coordinate meetings and obtain relevant documents had failed, despite repeated contact with the officials’ attorneys, said the State Comptroller’s Office.
According to the State Comptroller, the audit launched three months into the Israel-Hamas War is intended to examine the conduct of political, military, and intelligence decision-makers at every level – from the prime minister and cabinet ministers to senior IDF figures and Shin Bet commanders who held posts both before and during the crisis.
Shin Bet official refuses audit of Oct 7 failures
The Shin Bet’s current leadership has agreed to an audit focusing on the service’s core failures, under a framework negotiated between Englman and Shin Bet director David Zini, and later affirmed by the High Court of Justice.
But the two former officials addressed by Sunday’s letter, informed as early as July of the issues they would be questioned on, had yet to schedule a meeting even seven months after the court validated the audit framework.
On Monday, one of them – the former senior officer known publicly only as “Oscar,” who served as head of the Shin Bet’s southern district during the October 7, 2023, attack – formally notified the Englman that he would not comply.
In a letter sent by his attorneys, he argued that the State Comptroller had no authority to compel testimony from someone who had already retired from service. He further asserted that any audit touching on the intelligence “core failures” of October 7 must wait for the government to decide whether to establish a state commission of inquiry, as well as for the court to rule on the attorney-general’s position that the State Comptroller currently lacks authority over those matters.
His lawyers wrote that the interpretation by Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara binds all administrative authorities, “including the State Comptroller,” and that given the absence of both a government decision and a definitive court ruling, “the time has not yet come” for coordinating any meeting. The lawyers also noted that their own ability to access classified materials remains highly restricted, making cooperation impossible at this stage.
In response, the State Comptroller’s Office called the refusal “extremely serious, both because it violates the law and because it is ethically unacceptable.” It also added that the court “has already ruled that the Comptroller has the authority to question any witness, whether or not they are an employee of an audited body.”
The response further stressed that Oscar “held an active and senior position on the day of the October 7 massacre,” adding, “no one is above the law, and anyone who served in a senior role on October 7 has a duty to fully cooperate with the state audit.”
The refusal is only the latest escalation in a long-running institutional clash. For over a year, the State Comptroller has been attempting to advance an investigation into the intelligence and operational failures that enabled the October 7 attack, but has repeatedly encountered friction with the security establishment.
The IDF and Shin Bet have insisted that only a full state commission of inquiry has the legal authority to examine sensitive operational decisions.
Englman argues that his mandate explicitly allows such audits, particularly after the court-approved mechanism was established. While the current Shin Bet leadership has been cooperating, this former official who oversaw the southern arena – the sector that catastrophically collapsed on October 7 – is now openly refusing to engage.
Against this backdrop, the anger of families whose relatives were murdered or abducted on October 7 continues to intensify. Families have expressed deep frustration that, more than two years after the attack, there is still no comprehensive investigation with subpoena powers.
Many have said that they do not trust the IDF’s internal debriefs, which remain unpublished; they view the State Comptroller’s audit as an insufficient mechanism; and they see the government’s ongoing delay in establishing a commission as a refusal to confront responsibility.
Several families have warned that the process reflects an effort to avoid accountability, adding to their sense that “No one is actually investigating what happened.”
Key structural questions remain unresolved: whether the government will finally establish a state commission of inquiry; how the court will rule on the Comptroller’s authority to probe core intelligence failures; and whether additional former security officials will refuse to cooperate.
For now, the Comptroller’s audit remains limited, the government commission does not exist, the IDF’s internal reviews remain hidden from the public, and for families waiting since October 7, the refusal delivered today is another sign that the state’s investigation into its gravest security failure in decades has not yet truly begun.