Israel’s State Comptroller demanded that officials from the National Security Ministry hand over the interim findings of the National Security Council’s internal investigation into the failures of October 7—but the staff refused, fearing they would be leaked, Kan Reshet Bet reported on Thursday morning.

According to the report, senior NSC official Victor Weiss said that the public would be shaken if the investigation’s findings were published, but it is impossible to publish them. He added that the only way the public will hear about it is if the findings are transferred to the Comptroller, because that’s how they would be leaked to the media.

The investigation found stagnation in the National Security Council’s policy under three prime ministers, Binyamin Netanyahu, Naftali Bennett, and Yair Lapid—finding no significant differences in policy that led to the failure.

It also found that the NSC itself was trapped in the prevailing “conceptzia,” which led to intellectual stagnation, partly due to the lack of rotation in key positions. Sources involved in the probe described the recommendations being formulated in the wake of the findings as “radical” and expected to include significant structural changes.

Weiss is one of the three NSC officials responsible for the investigation and is supposed to transfer the findings to the heads of the NSC divisions.

In response to the report, the State Comptroller’s Office stated, “Drafts of the State Comptroller’s reports and audit materials submitted to the Comptroller are confidential by law. The Comptroller’s Office adheres to this meticulously. If the report is correct, then this is a serious statement that contravenes the law, which stipulates that every audited body is obligated to submit documents ‘without delay.'”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)