‘We failed to protect the kibbutz’: Israel admits ‘severe errors’ on October 7
By Loveday Morris and Adela Suliman
The Israeli military has released the results of its first internal probe into the Hamas attacks on October 7, admitting to major failings in the defence of Kibbutz Be'eri, a hard-hit community on the Gaza border, but falling short of holding individual commanders to account and leaving key questions unanswered.
The report said “severe mistakes and errors” were made in the army response as Hamas overran the community. The army was underprepared, it said, and did not always prioritise civilian lives. The report detailed how in the afternoon, Israel Defence Forces units waited nearby even as residents were killed.
Banners showing members of the Shoham family, who were abducted by Hamas on October 7, outside their damaged home in Kibbutz Be’eri.Credit: Kobi Wolf For The Washington Post
“From the afternoon hours onwards, forces were waiting outside the kibbutz while the massacre continued inside,” it said. “The IDF did not fulfil its mission to defend the residents in the most grave manner and failed in its mission.”
Military officials presented the findings to the surviving members of the community at the Dead Sea resort they now call home. A total of 101 people died in Be'eri – one-tenth of its population – as Hamas fighters from Gaza broke through Israel’s high-tech border fence and took military units by surprise.
Dozens more were taken hostage, 11 of whom have yet to be released.
Up and down the border, outgunned community guards and residents were left fighting virtually alone.
Israeli soldiers inside the bedroom of a home where people were killed by Palestinian fighters at Kibbutz Be’eri near the Gaza border on October 14, 2023. Credit: Kobi Wolf For The Washington Post
“We failed to protect the kibbutz,” Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an IDF spokesman, conceded as he spoke to residents, according to Israeli press reports. He noted that the IDF probe fell short of a wider independent commission of inquiry that he said “should be established”.
Nine months after the attack, there is increasing public pressure for accountability over the historic collapse in security that enabled Hamas-led militants to rampage into Israeli communities bordering the Gaza Strip. So far, only a smattering of security leaders have resigned, and the prospect of culpability among the political echelons appears even more distant.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected establishing an independent commission while Israel is at war. The IDF’s internal investigations are unlikely to go far in assuaging public demands.
“It’s taken with a grain of salt,” Tamar Hermann, a senior research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, said of the probe. “People expect some kind of official commission of inquiry composed of people who were not involved in any way.”
“The IDF did not fulfil its mission to defend the residents in the most grave manner and failed in its mission.”
IDF report
While the IDF has managed to repair its reputation partially in the eyes of many Israelis during the Gaza war, anger still runs deep in Be'eri, she said.
“We should note that Kibbutz Be’eri did not need the results of the investigation to feel the IDF’s failure every minute since 6.29am on that black Shabbat,” the kibbutz said in a written statement. “The army’s failure has been etched into our bodies and hearts for nine months now.”
The report detailed the chaos on the day of the attack, when about 340 militants entered the kibbutz, including about 100 Hamas special forces Nukhba fighters.
Smaller IDF units that arrived at the kibbutz in the morning were “hit” and “exited the community”, the report said. They positioned themselves at the gate and fought there as Hamas carried out kidnappings.
Meanwhile, members of the kibbutz’s security team held the line against the attack.
“For the first seven hours of combat, the kibbutz residents defended themselves; their actions and resourcefulness prevented the enemy from expanding the attack to additional neighbourhoods,” the report said.
The investigation did contribute to the understanding of the depth and complexity of the fighting in some parts of Be'eri, the kibbutz statement said, but it added that the probe did not provide satisfactory answers to “critical questions”.
Those questions include why military forces gathered at the gate of the kibbutz for hours without entering, the root causes of the intelligence failure that permitted Hamas’s invasion and whether the soldiers who arrived understood that their primary objective was to protect civilians.
Rami Gold, a 70-year-old member of Be'eri’s security squad who attempted to hold off the militants that day, said the army’s investigation produced little new information.
“From my perspective,” he said, “what they said is, ‘We abandoned you’.”
Trust is broken, said Gold, who is among the few residents who have returned to live in Be'eri.
“The army’s job is to make us trust it,” he said. “Right now, that’s not the case. I trust us.”
One of the most controversial IDF decisions of October 7 was to target the home of Pessi Cohen, where Hamas militants were hiding along with 14 hostages.
Despite the presence of Israelis inside the home, Brigadier General Barak Hiram, who had been appointed to direct the fight in Be'eri that afternoon, made the decision to target the house.
The burnt house of Vivian Silver, 74, after it was attacked in Kibbutz Be’eri.Credit: Kobi Wolf For The Washington Post
The IDF concluded that the tank fire was carried out “professionally” with a joint decision made by commanders after a situational assessment “with the intent to apply pressure to the terrorists and save the civilians held hostage inside”.
The report did not specify whether Israel’s notorious Hannibal directive was in effect at the time. The directive instructs troops to do anything in their power to prevent an Israeli from being kidnapped, even if that puts that person’s life at risk.
Haaretz newspaper reported this week that the Hannibal directive was enacted on October 7, with an 11.22am order transmitted to troops that “not a single vehicle can return to Gaza”. It was one of several orders to use the directive that day, according to the newspaper.
The IDF has refused to say whether such an order was given. “Questions of this kind will be looked into at a later stage,” the IDF report, released on Friday (AEST), said.
The attack raised many broad questions among Israelis about the country’s intelligence and defence capabilities. Information came to light in August that an attack was imminent, but warnings were dismissed, The Washington Post reported last year.
“You can’t just look at Be'eri,” said Yossi Kuperwasser, former head of the research division in the IDF’s military intelligence agency. “You cannot separate it from everything else that happened on that terrible day.”
The Washington Post
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