Between the crowns and the still damp earth, Ruby Chen asked for answers and names, demanded a commission of inquiry “now” and, looking the executive representative in the eyes, left a warning that has no place in a government room: “You have only been pursuing honor, power, money and tricks”. Benjamin Netanyahu will be heard in the Knesset on Monday about the creation of a state commission of inquiry into the security failures of October 7th
The ceremony began quietly, with the murmur of psalms and the difficult silence of someone who knows that Itay Chen, a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, who died in the war and only now, last week, brought from Gaza, will not cross the gates of his house again. But his tone rose when his father, Ruby, took the floor. At the head of the line of authorities, he stopped at the Minister of Aliyah and Integration, Ofir Sofer, there as the face of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Government, and directly accused: “His coalition colleagues have only pursued honor, power, money and tricks”.
Then, he went further and directly questioned the minister, referring to the members of the government coalition: “I ask you: bring them here, call me, and we will walk together in this sacred place and visit [o coronel Asaf] Hamami and the other heroes to bring them into line, or we send them away, damn them!” The name of Asaf Hamami, a colonel who died in 2023, was called by Ruby as an emblem of the “heroes” who “remained along the way”. But the anger came from behind: Ruby says that her son was misled by his commanders — they told him that the next big battle would be in the north, “not in Gaza” — and that, before that, there were politicians who “didn’t want to listen to the army commanders”, those who warned of the danger “on the doorstep of the State of Israel” and called for unity, a brake on the temperature of public discourse.
In the open field of the cemetery, the mourning turned into a direct accusation: Ruby pointed the finger at the “commanders who, on October 7th, were left behind” and at the “politicians who should have been the responsible adults and are the main ones responsible”. “We will go after them all and will not stop until they are forced, under oath, to give answers to every Israeli and to take responsibility — all within the framework of a state commission of inquiry. An entire nation is now standing by waiting for answers, waiting for justice to be done and seen with those who are responsible for the catastrophe,” said Ruby Chen without any cobwebs.
Among thanks to those who helped bring the body – he mentioned names from the North American sphere such as Jake Sullivan, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner and the current vice-president of the USA, JD Vance -, Ruby also set out what, for him, is the principle of any victory: “It starts with the decision to bring back the last of the hostages, to open the door to a better future”.
Next door, Hagit Chen, his mother, saluted him in front of the grave. In the end, the applause broke the unwritten code of discreet funerals.
On the Government side, the person listening on site was Ofir Sofer, minister in the portfolio that deals with Jewish immigration and the integration of new citizens and a member of a coalition that Itay’s father holds responsible for what happened on October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked and exposed flaws that the country is still discussing. This discussion will have a formal stage tomorrow, Monday, in Parliament.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister, will sit in the Knesset for a “40 signatures” debate — a mechanism that the opposition can activate once a month and which the head of the Government is legally obliged to attend — on the creation of a state commission of inquiry into the security failures of October 7th.
The initiative comes from Yesh Atid, the party of opposition leader Yair Lapid, with the support of the remaining opposition factions. “After 765 days”, the statement accuses, the executive “continues to refuse the commission that the families ask for”. The Government has defended itself with two arguments: first, that “investigating in times of war would be inappropriate”; then, that such a commission “would not be impartial” because its members were appointed by the President of the Supreme Court, Isaac Amit.
In October there was already an identical debate, without a final decision. Tomorrow, in the Knesset, politicians will have to say whether they are willing to listen to what was shouted today on the dirt floor.
