Netanyahu criticised in damning report on 2014 Gaza war

Israel's main government watchdog criticised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on Tuesday over what it said was a lack of preparation and cabinet consultation over a network of Hamas tunnels that confounded the military in the 2014 Gaza war.

The report accused Netanyahu and his defence and intelligence chiefs of failing, prior to the war, to make his security cabinet - which formulates strategies and approves military action - aware in a timely fashion of the strategic threat they knew the Hamas tunnel network presented.

"Significant and necessary information that the cabinet ministers required in order to make their best decisions ... was not brought before the ministers in a satisfactory manner in the discussions that preceded the (war)," the report said.

In response, Netanyahu said on Facebook that "the tunnel threat was presented in detail to the security cabinet in 13 separate sessions and was discussed in all its severity while examining all of the strategic and operational scenarios".

The investigation into Operation Protective Edge from the state comptroller also said the government had for months ignored a growing humanitarian crisis inside Gaza, and failed to consider diplomatic moves that could have averted the outbreak of hostilities, Haaretz newspaper reported.

The war killed 2,251 Palestinians, more than half of them civilians according to UN figures, and 74 Israelis, including six civilians. The intense fighting over 50 days also reduced swaths of Gaza to piles of rubble, making 100,000 people homeless.

The tunnels dug by Hamas proved to be one of the militant group’s most powerful weapons, as they used them to launch surprise attacks both outside the Gaza Strip and against ground forces that were sent in.