State Comptroller Protective Edge Report Lambasts Netanyahu and Ya'alon

Jerusalem, 28 February, 2017 (TPS) -- State Comptroller Yosef Shapira has released the report his office wrote on the management of Operation Protective Edge.

In his report, the State Comptroller criticized Prime Minister Netanyahu, former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and former IDF Chief-of-Staff Lt. Gen. (Res) Benny Gantz for failing to adequately appreciate the level of threat posed by the tunnels Hamas had dug into Israel.

The report criticizes the army’s lack of proper and thorough planning for dealing with the threat to the civilian population posed by the tunnels, which enabled Hamas fighters to covertly infiltrate rural settlements (kibbutzim and moshavim) in the Gaza Environs  region. “Intelligence about the tunnels was scanty at best, and did not provide IDF forces operating in or adjacent to Gaza with the information they needed to adequately deal with the tunnels and the threats they posed,” the report states.

The report also criticizes the PM for not keeping the cabinet appropriately informed, not only regarding the tunnel threat, but of the overall developments in Gaza leading up to the outbreak of hostilities. “The cabinet only received general statements that contained very partial information, and certainly did not reflect either the likelihood of an outbreak of hostilities, or the seriousness of the threat the tunnels posed. At no time during the operation did the cabinet conduct a full and detailed discussion on the tunnels, the threat they posed, and what if any measures the IDF had to counter and neutralize them.” This despite the fact that both Netanyahu and Ya’alon had, in closed briefings with the COS and senior officers, described the tunnels as “a significant strategic threat.”

The report’s chapter dealing with IDF, ISA (Shin-Bet) and Ministry of Defense is also scathing.

The report states that the IDF failed to come up with a competent and effective response for dealing with the tunnels. It describes the IDF’s efforts to deal with them as “always too little, always too late.”

The report compared what it described as “the exemplary behavior and fortitude shown by the residents of the Gaza Environs”, with the Defense establishment which “failed to provide an adequate response to the security needs of the residents of the area adjacent to the Gaza border.” The report specifically mentions the government’s decision to cut the budget allocated to the region’s defense needs, saying that the government’s actions “contributed to the erosion of the residents’ sense of security and safety.”

The report also mentions Ya’alon’s misjudgment of the situation in the days prior to the operation, stating, “Ya’alon’s estimate was that there would not be an escalation.”

According to the report, not all the tunnels Hamas has dug across the border have been located, and as many as half could still be operational.

The one cabinet member who emerges unscathed, and even enhanced from the report is Education Minister Naftali Bennet, who was the the Minister of Economic Affairs (Trade, Industry and Employment). Bennet was the only cabinet minister to sound the alarm about the tunnels, and had accused the PM of providing the cabinet with the information its ministers needed, and were entitled to have in order to enable them to take informed decisions pertaining to the military situation in general, and the threat the tunnels posed in particular.

Prime Minister Netayahu has rebuffed the findings. “We succeeded in thwarting Hamas”, he said. “Iron Dome effectively neutralized its ability to bombard our cities with rockets, and the bottom line is that Hams did not succeed in penetrating any Israeli settlements, despite the tunnels”.