Israel’s law enforcement apparatus asked its American counterpart to hold off on indicting Palestinian terrorists who took part in Hamas’s October 7 onslaught before Israel does so, to avoid a situation that would “embarrass” Jerusalem, the Ynet news site reported Sunday.
The United States was said to be nearing the completion of its own probe of Hamas’s massacre that will enable it to soon file charges against suspects, which due to differences in the legal systems is far simpler in the US than in Israel.
Meanwhile, Israeli prosecutors reportedly have put together charge sheets against 22 terrorists who took part in the massacre in Kibbutz Nir Oz. These will likely be filed as part of a single mega-indictment against hundreds of suspects, for a case unprecedented in scale in Israel’s history.
Despite this intention, no decision has been made yet as to whether the indictment will be split into several simultaneous court cases to make the judicial process easier.
The Ynet report put the number of Palestinian detainees thought to be involved in the October 7 Hamas atrocities at 300, contradicting previous estimates putting the number at over 1,000.
Those who were involved in the massacre are not slated to be released in any future hostage deal, the news site reported.
Among the 300 detainees are operatives who didn’t participate in the onslaught but were involved in holding hostages in Gaza. No final decision has apparently been made on whether they will be prosecuted in the same indictment, or would be eligible to be freed in a potential deal.
The case against the October 7 terrorists is complex and faces multiple legal difficulties.
According to Ynet, a small team of prosecutors is working on the case, getting materials from the Israel Police’s Lahav 433 special crimes unit — which was said to have collected testimonies from 1,700 survivors of the assault and from 400 members of security forces — as well as from the Shin Bet and the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate.
The new information that reportedly led to the consolidation of evidence against the 22 Nir Oz terrorists apparently came from the Shin Bet following the military’s advancement into new areas in Gaza, where teams found incriminating evidence.
Prosecutors have updated Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara on the charges, and are apparently pushing for the passage of nine bills in the Knesset designed to alter the criminal law system in order to enable the historic mega-trial, which experts say would likely take decades under the current system.
These bills reportedly include enabling trial proceedings without the defendant’s physical presence, using a video link instead, or even without their lawyers in court.
Others bills are said to relate to the terrorists’ legal representation — the Public Defender’s Office has already said it has no plans to represent them — as well as to enabling victims to file written affidavits rather than undergo questioning in person in court, and to the extent prosecutors must hand over investigation material to the defense, including when some of it is classified.