State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman leveled heavy criticism Wednesday at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, former defense minister Yoav Gallant and other past and present officials over their failure to adequately care for the civilian front in the wake of the October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion.

In a report released by his office — Englman’s fourth publication since launching a broad probe into “multi-system failures” tied to October 7 — the comptroller said that government decisions after the outbreak of war largely failed to achieve their goals. He pointed to a broader trend, stretching back nearly two decades, in which successive governments “failed to appoint a body responsible for managing care of the home front in times of emergency.”

The report reviewed the government’s handling of the home front since the war began, based on data collected between January and May of last year, focusing on health and education services for evacuees, social and psychological services, and the rights of reservists.

Inspections performed by Englman across the country revealed shortages of manpower in essential factories, a lack of psychological care professionals, insufficient government representatives at evacuee sites, and deficiencies in distributing grants and compensation.

The report highlighted the immense strain placed on Israeli society since October 7, with hundreds of thousands of people evacuated from northern and southern communities for lengthy periods, and an even greater number of reservists repeatedly called up, noting the economic, physical, and psychological tolls on the population.

“Hundreds of thousands of residents experienced firsthand the failures of the Israeli government in managing the civilian sector during the [war],” Englman wrote in a memo accompanying the report, calling on the political leadership to immediately establish a comprehensive system to manage the civilian front, and warning: “We cannot waste any more time.”

While critics, including opposition members and watchdog groups, have questioned whether Englman, an economist and businessman who has no legal background and who was appointed by a Netanyahu-led government, will seek to minimize political responsibility for the October 7 attack in his investigations, the comptroller directed considerable criticism at the government in Wednesday’s report.

According to Englman, successive governments since the end of the Second Lebanon War in 2006 have failed to regulate authority and overall responsibility for home front management, and Netanyahu — who served as prime minister for 13 out of 14.5 years from March 2009 until October 7 — has failed to address long-standing deficiencies.

Englman noted that former prime ministers Naftali Bennett (June 2021–June 2022) and Yair Lapid (June–December 2022) likewise “did not act on the issue.”

In particular, the report noted, authority and overall responsibility for managing the civilian aspects of the home front during wartime were never fully established.

Yossi Shelley, the former director-general of the Prime Minister’s Office, was also faulted for mismanaging a forum for directors-general from various ministries to coordinate cross-ministerial activity, failing to outline clear procedures and to coordinate decision-making. The report said shortcomings in the forum’s activities directly harmed the government’s overall ability to manage the civilian sector during the war.

In the report, Smotrich, the finance minister, was sharply criticized for not exercising his authority as head of the Finance Ministry’s socioeconomic cabinet to operate a civilian control center intended to coordinate ministries’ wartime activities.

After the war began, the government — with Smotrich’s participation — decided to establish and operate such a center. But it was shut down only two and a half months after its creation, the report noted, without specifying the precise timeline.

Englman further argued that if Smotrich was unable to implement the government’s decision, he should have reported back to the government and ensured that another body was designated to take on its responsibility.

The report noted that the socioeconomic cabinet convened only five times in the first year of the war, and when it did meet, it did not discuss the civilian command center or inter-ministerial coordination. Nor did it address the wide range of needs raised by ministers’ representatives at the war’s outset, such as employment and housing.

Criticism was also directed at senior officials in the Finance Ministry — including its administrative and legal divisions, the wage commissioner and the Civil Service Commission — for their failure to manage the civilian command center.

The Finance Ministry responded that bureaucratic and legal obstacles, including budget delays, had prevented decision-making and efficient reporting on the matter, and argued that Smotrich’s management still enabled broad aid to 200,000 evacuees, 300,000 reservists and many self-employed people, while steering the economy and rehabilitation budgets.

Gallant and defense ministers before him were accused of failing to regulate the status of the National Emergency Authority (NEA) and the IDF Home Front Command for years.

As a result, the comptroller wrote, these emergency bodies and their leaders did not provide an adequate response to various civilian needs during the war.

The report found that the NEA was not equipped to manage the home front during wartime, while the Home Front Command, though well-resourced, did not adequately serve evacuees from the north and south. It added that the role of representatives from the Home Front Command at evacuee sites was unclear.

Despite the NEA’s assessment that home front preparedness for emergencies was “medium to good,” in practice, the government’s response requires significant improvement, according to the report.

The report stressed that all the failings listed had persisted despite repeated past warnings from the Comptroller’s Office itself.

Englman’s broad probe is currently the only state-sanctioned comprehensive investigation into the October 7 attack, during which some 1,200 people were massacred and 251 taken hostage by Hamas and allied groups in southern Israel.

Netanyahu has long resisted forming a state commission of inquiry, claiming at first that one could only be formed after the war ends, and later that such a panel — appointed by the Supreme Court chief according to law — would be biased. A Channel 12 report on Tuesday said the premier was considering forming a hand-picked governmental panel to lead a commission of inquiry.

Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.