Israeli State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman accused the military of engaging in "dangerous" actions that are undermining investigations into the Oct. 7, 2023 attack against Israel by Hamas, potentially "hindering the discovery of the truth."
Englman made the accusation in a strongly worded letter to Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi on Monday, Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported.
In the letter, Englman addressed the behavior of the chief of staff's office in overseeing an investigation into 12 key issues agreed upon between the State Comptroller's Office and the military.
On Nov. 21, 2024, the Israeli army informed the Supreme Court that it was prepared to allow the State Comptroller to investigate the 12 matters related to the Oct. 7 attack.
Englman said in his letter to Halevi that a representative from the military's general staff was sent to attend all meetings of the investigative team with army officials.
"The higher the rank of the military official or the more sensitive the topic, the higher the rank of the general staff representative present at these meetings," he added.
Englman also said the representative had taken it upon themselves to record these meetings without prior consultation with the investigators and often without informing them.
"The worst part is that this practice began without notifying the participants in the meetings on behalf of the State Comptroller, and if our representative had not noticed the recording device at the end of (one of) the meetings, we may never have known about it," Englman wrote.
He stressed that despite the objections of his office's representatives to the recordings, the practice continued and the recordings were not handed over to them.
Englman also noted that one of the Israeli officers summoned for an interview with representatives from the ministries claimed he had signed a confidentiality agreement that restricted him from providing information to the investigative teams.
The State Comptroller warned that such behavior sent a "message of deterrence and intimidation" to lower-ranking officers and field personnel which could lead to a lack of full cooperation with the State Comptroller's office and obstruct the truth.
"I see these actions as dangerous, as they could harm the proper course of the investigation in which officials are required by law to provide complete information without fear of consequences and to submit requested documents to the State Comptroller's Office immediately and without delay," he added.
Despite contacting Halevi's office 10 days ago, Englman said the issue remained unresolved.
He warned that if these obstacles were not removed by Wednesday, he would use his investigatory powers, including summoning witnesses to his office to provide documents and testimony.
Among the issues the State Comptroller and the military agreed to investigate are the Israeli military's performance during the massacre at the Nova music festival in the Re'im settlement near Gaza, the issuance of permits for the event, the lack of a national security concept, the evacuation of the wounded to hospitals, and the activities of the Home Front Command in evacuating civilians, according to the report.
The State Comptroller's Office is Israel's central institution for overseeing the operations of state agencies to ensure accountability and transparency with public funds. The State Comptroller is elected by the Knesset (parliament) for a seven-year term, and Englman has held the position since June 2019.
The Israeli army has continued a genocidal war on Gaza that has killed more than 45,850 people, mostly women and children, since the cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, despite a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire.
In November last year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its deadly war on the enclave.
