Responsibility is not just a demand from our soldiers, but also from their leaders

Orna Neutra, the mother of fallen and kidnapped officer Captain Omer Neutra, demands accountability from political leaders following the October 7 disaster. She describes the elimination of the terrorists who kidnapped her son and the image she received face to face. Neutra criticizes the turning of the question of responsibility into a political matter and demands an independent and full investigation of the Prime Minister's responsibility, without blaming only one person.

Orna Neutra, the mother of fallen and kidnapped officer Captain Omer Neutra, writes a poignant opinion piece following the elimination of the terrorists involved in the kidnapping of Tank Crew 3. She describes how the news of the elimination brought her a concrete image of the terrorist who stood on her son's tank and pulled him out – an image that runs through her head on a loop. Neutra notes that since Nimrod Cohen's release from captivity, more details are known about what Omer and the crew went through on the morning of Simchat Torah, but many questions remain unanswered: how the border was breached, how systems collapsed, and how twenty-year-olds found themselves alone facing hordes of terrorists. She emphasizes that responsibility does not rest on the shoulders of one person – there were failures in the military, the security system, and the political echelon – but wonders what responsibility means in the State of Israel today. Neutra criticizes the repeated use of the words "may we be worthy" without a practical demand for accountability, and the turning of responsibility into a political matter judged by camp affiliation. She asks: if a commander is responsible for his unit and a Chief of Staff is responsible for the army, what is the meaning of a Prime Minister's responsibility for the state he leads? She does not demand exclusive blame for Netanyahu, but an independent and full investigation of his responsibility, three years after the disaster. Neutra concludes with a call: if we truly want to be worthy – that is where we must start.