Be'eri Massacre

On 7 October 2023, in the opening attacks of the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Hamas militants carried out a massacre at Be'eri, an Israeli kibbutz near the Gaza Strip.

Around 70 Hamas militants of the al-Qassam Brigades, Nuseirat Battalion, along with DFLP militants had attacked the kibbutz and at least 130 people were killed in the attack, including women (such as peace activist Vivian Silver), children, toddlers, and one infant, claiming the lives of 10% of the farming community's residents. Dozens of homes were also burned down. This incident occurred concurrently with a series of other massacres and military engagements in multiple neighbouring Israeli communities, including Netiv haAsara, Kfar Aza, and the Rei'm music festival massacre. Several newspapers described the massacre as an act of terrorism.

A few early claims regarding the attack, including that forty babies had been killed, some of them beheaded, were later found to be false.

Hostages were taken, leading to a stand-off with the Israel Defense Forces. Relatives of some of those killed have demanded a probe into potential deaths of some of these hostages from friendly fire, including one incident in which an Israeli tank fired at a house full of hostages.

Background

Kibbutz Be'eri is a veteran-established kibbutz located in the Gaza periphery since 1946. Its members are generally on the secular left, and it includes many peace activists.

The kibbutz had around 1,200 residents before the attack and was the largest village of the Eshkol Regional Council.

Attack

The Hamas force targeting Be'eri consisted of militants belonging to the al-Qassam Brigades' Nuseirat Battalion led by Abed al Rahman. On the morning of 7 October 2023, at 6:30 am, Hamas militants began firing rockets at the kibbutz. Another Palestinian militant group, the Maoist DFLP, later declared that its troops (organized as National Resistance Brigades) were also fighting the IDF in Be'eri. Around 70 militants entered the kibbutz on motorcycles and in vehicles. The kibbutz's 10-member security team fought the attackers but was overwhelmed and at least five were killed.

Using collected WhatsApp messages from a mother's group in the kibbutz and CCTV footage, a rough timeline was established. Hamas arrived at the gate of the kibbutz before 6:00 am, with the militants first executing the civilians in a vehicle. By 7:10 am, the first messages on the WhatsApp group contained images of three motorbikes, each carrying two heavily armed Hamas militants leaving through the main gate. At 9:05 am, Hamas was seen dragging a corpse from the car that was destroyed at the kibbutz gate.

Tutorials on locking doors were shared on the WhatsApp group, but concerns were expressed over the shelters' inability to stop attackers. Hamas attackers went around the neighborhoods, shooting and throwing grenades, massacring the occupants of each house and setting some on fire with Molotov cocktails. WhatsApp was used to advise occupants and share safehouses, but it also turned increasingly desperate as mentions of deaths of family members and a dead baby surfaced. One 10-month-old baby is confirmed to have been shot during the attack, while held in the arms of her mother.

After capturing the village, the attackers started going from house to house, shooting or capturing the residents. They also shot at buildings and set some on fire. The militants were accompanied by a camera team and journalist who documented the attack and extolled it as a Palestinian victory. Many residents tried to hide in safe rooms, but the militants blew up the safe room doors and killed those inside.

The militants took up to 50 people hostage in a dining room in Be'eri, and kidnapped others, taking them the Gaza Strip. Behind the main dining hall, dozens of Hamas members held 15 Israelis as hostages. Videos emerged showing the hostages being led barefoot across a street in town. The hostages in the dining hall were freed when security forces stormed the dining hall, killing the militants there.Two hours after the massacre began, twenty Israeli Air Force airmen from the elite Shaldag Unit arrived by helicopter at Kibbutz Be'eri. Five were killed and one was wounded by the militants within a very short time, many of them near "the iconic yellow gate of the kibbutz." The surviving airmen were forced to retreat and find other civilian areas with less resistance due to their now very small group. An Israeli CH-53D helicopter was destroyed on the ground by Hamas militants hours after the attack.

At some point, at least two tanks arrived and were ordered to shell houses where militants were thought to be hiding. After around 12 hours, more IDF forces arrived and killed most of the militants. The IDF reported that they had killed dozens of militants and freed all the hostages in Be'eri within 18 hours of the initial attack, but 48 hours later were still sweeping the kibbutz for Hamas holdouts.

An operational team, later dubbed the Elchanan team led by Staff Sergeant (res.) Elchanan Meir Kalmanson, of Mossad, arrived independently from Otniel to Be'eri along with his brother Menachem, and their nephew Itiel joined them. They evacuated in an armored jeep over 100 residents of the kibbutz for 15 hours.

Casualties and hostages

Four civilians were killed near the Gaza border while in the custody of Hamas militants. Thirteen hostages, including two 12-year-old twins, were later killed, some in crossfire as Hamas militants and Israeli forces exchanged fire and an Israeli tank fired on the house where they were held. The twins' bodies were burned and were only identified more than a month after the attack.

Towards the end of the evacuation, Elchanan was killed by fire from militants. In this battle, Lt. Col. Eli Ginsberg, who was the commander of the Lotar unit, was also killed. In parallel, while treating a seriously wounded casualty, a Shayetet 13 naval fighter, Staff Sergeant Ofek Rosso, was killed.

The kibbutz suffered heavy losses of life and property. A resident later told ''The Times of Israel'' that the kibbutz was "completely destroyed". Some hostages were held captive for two days, until Israeli Defense Forces moved in on 9 October. A resident who was away at the time when the attack began said Israeli forces only gained control on Monday night, after commanders in the field made difficult decisions – including shelling houses with their occupants inside, without knowing whether the hostages inside them were dead or alive.

Erroneous claims

Yossi Landau, regional head of the relief organisation ZAKA, stated to Sky News that around 80% of the bodies at Be'eri and Kfar Aza showed signs of torture, and that he found "two piles of ten children each were tied to the back, burnt to death" at Be'eri. Haaretz later found the claim regarding the tied children was erroneus, because the list of the dead at Be'eri only includes 9 children, and there are no cases known from Be'eri or any of the surrounding communities of children from several families having been murdered together. In January 2024, Kibbutz Be'eri also pushed back against a senior IDF commander's claim that eight babies were killed in the kibbutz's communal nursery and that an Auschwitz survivor called Genia was among those murdered during the attack. A kibbutz spokesperson said: "Nearly one hundred people were murdered on Kibbutz Be'eri, and the community suffered hundreds of heartbreaking incidents on that Black Saturday and over the past months, especially regarding the hostages. However, incidents such as eight murdered babies and a murdered Holocaust survivor named Genia – did not happen."

Survivors and first responders have reported that some of the women from Be'eri suffered sexual violence during the attack, though later evicdence has cast doubt on the claims of the first responder who reported this.

Aftermath

On 24 October 2023, the IDF reportedly killed Abed al Rahman, deputy commander of the Nuseirat Battalion, who had led the Be'eri massacre. On 6 January 2024 IDF and Shin Bet announced that the commander of the Nuseirat battalion Ismail Siraj and his new deputy Ahmed Wahaba, who had replaced Rahman, were killed in an airstrike.

At a meeting between members of the kibbutz and the Kalmanson family after the Baari massacre, a letter from a kibbutz member was quoted about the Elchanan teams actions: "...Elchanan rescued us from the window of the shelter, while the house was burning...after long hours of distress, he arrived like an angel and immediately instilled confidence in us. His face will remain etched in my heart forever..."

In January 2024 it was announced that based on estimates from the Tkuma Administration which is leading the rehabilitation and development of the affected kibbutz's and Gaza periphery, the cost of rebuilding the kibbutz is at about $80 million. An internal survey of kibbutz survivors and evacuees in early 2024 showed that a very small percentage, less then 1% have indicated that they never want to return to the kibbutz. About 20% said that they would return the minute they were given the green light from officials, while the majority of respondents indicated that they would depend on various factors, mostly clustered around security, in the kibbutz and relations between Israel and the Gaza Strip.

Accusations of friendly fire during attack

Yasmin Porat and Hadas Dagan, two of the surviving hostages, said in interviews that an Israeli tank fired on a house in which several dozen militants were holding 14 hostages, including the 12-year-old twins. Porat had been able to leave the house with one of the militants who, wishing to surrender, had spoken on the phone to Israeli police, according to Porat, and been told to undress and leave the house with her. He did so, using Porat as a human shield, and was arrested; Porat then informed Israeli police of the number of hostages and hostage-takers left in the house. The militants unsuccessfully demanded safe passage from the Israeli army and police in order to return to the Gaza Strip with the hostages. In an ensuing gun battle, at least two hostages and one of the hostage-takers died, according to Dagan.

As dusk fell on October 7, an argument broke out between the SWAT commander and division commander General Barak Hiram, according to ''The New York Times''; the SWAT commander believed more hostage-takers might surrender, but Hiram wanted the situation resolved by nightfall. After Hamas militants in the house fired a rocket-propelled grenade, Hiram ordered a tank commander to breach the house, "even at the cost of civilian casualties", and the tank fired two shells. Dagan said her husband was killed when shrapnel from the second of these shells entered his neck, severing an artery. Only two of the 14 hostages, Porat and Dagan, survived the crossfire and shelling. How many hostages died as a result of tank fire is unclear.

The ''Times'' report led to a public debate in Israel on the appropriateness of General Hiram's conduct. In January 2024, relatives of the victims delivered a letter to the military in which they said that "according to the evidence, the shooting of the tank was fatal and killed many hostages in addition to the terrorists" and demanded a "comprehensive and transparent probe into the decisions and actions that led to this tragic outcome". The families also prevented the demolition of the house in question, to enable an investigation to take place. ''Haaretz'' asked the IDF in an editorial to disclose whether or not the decision to fire on the house was an application of Israel's controversial Hannibal Directive.

Depiction in media

In November 2023, an exhibition about the massacre and the resulting damage was opened at the Haifa City Museum which includes photographs taken in the kibbutz after the attack and as well as collected items to show the scale of destruction. Also in November 2023, art and video works retrieved from the gallery in the kibbutz were removed and displayed at the National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome as part of an exhibit entitled "Ninety-five percent heaven, five percent hell" as part of the cultural attaché of the Israeli Embassy in Italy.

Landscapes of the kibbutz were created by resident Haran Keslo, and recovered from the kibbutz after the attack. They were displayed at the Haim Atar Ein Harod Art Center and had been created over between about 2020 and 2023.

See also

* Re'im music festival massacre
* List of massacres in Israel
* List of massacres during the 2023 Israel–Hamas war
* Outline of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war
* Palestinian political violence
* Moshe Dayan's eulogy for Ro'i Rothberg

Notes

Note changes in later archive versions of the article
28 Oct.31 Oct.

References

External links

* Ruth Margalit
The Devastation of Be’eri
The New Yorker, 19 October 2023

{{2023 Israel–Hamas war

Massacres during the Israel–Hamas war
Terrorist attacks attributed to Palestinian militant groups
21st-century mass murder in Israel
2023 mass shootings in Asia
Mass shootings in Israel
October 2023 events in Israel
Mass kidnappings in the 2020s
Be'eri
2023 Hamas attack on Israel
Massacres in 2023
Massacres in Israel during the Israeli–Palestinian conflict