The ten gunmen from Gaza knew precisely the right way to discover the Israeli intelligence hub — and the right way to get inside.
After crossing into Israel, they headed east on 5 bikes, two gunmen on every automobile, capturing at passing civilian vehicles as they pressed ahead.
Ten miles later, they veered off the street right into a stretch of woodland, dismounting outdoors an unmanned gate to a navy base. They blew open the barrier with a small explosive cost, entered the bottom and paused to take a gaggle selfie. Then they shot lifeless an unarmed Israeli soldier wearing a T-shirt.
For a second, the attackers appeared unsure about the place to go subsequent. Then one in every of them pulled one thing from his pocket: a color-coded map of the advanced.
Reoriented, they discovered an unlocked door to a fortified constructing. As soon as inside, they entered a room full of computer systems — the navy intelligence hub. Beneath a mattress within the room, they discovered two troopers taking shelter.
The gunmen shot each lifeless.
This sequence was captured on a digicam mounted on the top of a gunman who was later killed. The New York Instances reviewed the footage, then verified the occasions by interviewing Israeli officers and checking Israeli navy video of the assault as effectively.
They supply chilling particulars of how Hamas, the militia that controls the Gaza Strip, managed to shock and outmaneuver essentially the most highly effective navy within the Center East final Saturday — storming throughout the border, overrunning greater than 30 sq. miles, taking greater than 150 hostages and killing greater than 1,300 folks within the deadliest day for Israel in its 75-year historical past.
With meticulous planning and extraordinary consciousness of Israel’s secrets and techniques and weaknesses, Hamas and its allies overwhelmed the size of Israel’s entrance with Gaza shortly after daybreak, surprising a nation that has lengthy taken the prevalence of its navy as an article of religion.
Utilizing drones, Hamas destroyed key surveillance and communications towers alongside the border with Gaza, imposing huge blind spots on the Israeli navy. With explosives and tractors, Hamas blew open gaps within the border barricades, permitting 200 attackers to pour by way of within the first wave and one other 1,800 later that day, officers say. On bikes and in pickup vehicles, the assailants surged into Israel, overwhelming a minimum of eight navy bases and waging terrorist assaults towards civilians in additional than 15 villages and cities.
Hamas planning paperwork, movies of the assault and interviews with safety officers present that the group had a surprisingly subtle understanding of how the Israeli navy operated, the place it stationed particular models, and even the time it might take for reinforcements to reach.
The Israeli navy says that, as soon as the battle is over, it can examine how Hamas managed to breach its defenses so simply.
However whether or not the armed forces had been careless with their secrets and techniques or infiltrated by spies, the revelations have already unnerved officers and analysts who’ve questioned how the Israeli navy — famend for its intelligence gathering — may have inadvertently revealed a lot details about its personal operations.
The result was a staggering collection of atrocities and massacres, in what the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, has described because the worst mass killing of Jews in a single day because the Holocaust.
It shattered Israel’s aura of invincibility and provoked an Israeli counterattack on Gaza that has killed greater than 1,900 Palestinians in per week, the ferocity of which has by no means been seen in Gaza.
It additionally upended assumptions that Hamas, lengthy designated a terrorist group by Israel and lots of Western nations, had step by step grow to be extra fascinated about working Gaza than in utilizing it to launch main assaults on Israel.
Hamas made Israelis suppose it was “busy with governing Gaza,” Mentioned Ali Barakeh, a Hamas chief, in a tv interview on Monday. “All of the whereas, beneath the desk, Hamas was getting ready for this massive assault,” he added.
‘Hamas Within the Kibbutz!’
The terrorists had been inside Addi Cherry’s house, on the opposite facet of an unlocked door.
Ms. Cherry, her husband and their three kids had been hiding inside their eldest son’s bed room, listening to the gunmen wander round their lounge.
“Please assist us,” Ms. Cherry texted a good friend, as one of many assailants walked nearer and nearer to the bed room door.
Then he gripped the door deal with.
The Cherry household’s day had begun with a burst of rockets from Gaza, not lengthy after 6 a.m.
Ms. Cherry, an economist, and her husband, Oren, an engineer, rushed with their kids into their eldest son’s bed room, which doubled as a bomb shelter.
Initially, the occasions of the morning felt distressingly acquainted. The Cherry household lives in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, a rural village of some 500 residents, just a few hundred yards east of the border with Gaza. Early morning rocket fireplace — and the following rush to the secure room — is a frequent characteristic of life within the area.
“Like all the time,” Ms. Cherry remembered considering.
However this morning quickly felt totally different. The rockets saved coming, a lot of them headed deep into Israeli territory.
Then, from the fields across the village, got here the sound of gunshots.
Mr. Cherry left the bed room, and peeked by way of the shutters on their lounge home windows.
“Oh God,” Ms. Cherry remembered her husband shouting. “Hamas within the kibbutz! Hamas within the kibbutz!”
It was 7:20 a.m.
A whole bunch of Hamas invaders, carrying weapons, shoulder-borne rocket launchers and sporting the group’s inexperienced headband, had been streaming by way of the village fields.
It was a part of a coordinated assault that, paperwork and video present, assigned squads of assailants to specific targets. As some swept by way of navy bases, others charged into residential areas, ruthlessly kidnapping and killing civilians.
They might attain the Cherrys’ road inside minutes.
The household needed to act rapidly. Their bomb shelter — a youngster’s bed room — had no lock.
The dad and mom grabbed a chair, and wedged it beneath the door deal with — making it tougher to open.
They dragged a small cupboard, and pressed it towards the chair.
Then they waited. There was a military base subsequent to the village. Its troops could be right here inside minutes, Ms. Cherry remembered considering.
What she didn’t know was that a lot of them had been already lifeless.
‘Take troopers and civilians’
All alongside the border, the Hamas gunmen had already overrun most, if not all, of the Israeli border bases.
Footage from the attackers’ head-mounted cameras, together with the video of the raid on the intelligence hub, confirmed Hamas gunmen — from its extremely skilled Nukhba brigade — smashing by way of the barricades of a number of bases within the first mild of the morning.
After breaching, they had been cruel, gunning down some troopers of their beds and underwear. In a number of bases, they knew precisely the place the communications servers had been and destroyed them, in line with a senior Israeli military officer.
With a lot of their communications and surveillance programs down, the Israelis typically couldn’t see the commandos coming. They discovered it tougher to name for assist and mount a response. In lots of circumstances, they had been unable to guard themselves, not to mention the encircling civilian villages.
A Hamas planning doc — discovered by Israeli emergency responders in a single village — confirmed that the attackers had been organized into well-defined models with clear targets and battle plans.
One platoon had designated navigators, saboteurs and drivers — in addition to mortar models within the rear to supply cowl for the attackers, the doc reveals.
The group had a particular goal — a kibbutz — and the attackers had been tasked with storming the village from particular angles. They’d estimates for what number of Israeli troops had been stationed in close by posts, what number of automobiles that they had at their disposal, and the way lengthy it might take these Israeli reduction forces to succeed in them.
The doc is dated October 2022, suggesting that the assault had been deliberate for a minimum of a yr.
Elsewhere, different assailants had been posted to key street junctions to ambush Israeli reinforcements, in line with 4 senior officers and officers.
Some models had particular directions to seize Israelis to be used as bargaining chips in future prisoner exchanges with Israel.
“Take troopers and civilians as prisoners and hostages to barter with,” the doc mentioned.
‘We Are Going to Die’
The terrorists smashed their method into the Cherrys’ home shortly earlier than 10 a.m., in line with texts that Ms. Cherry despatched pals on the time.
They’d already killed the kibbutz guards, in addition to a civilian safety volunteer who had rushed to confront them within the opening moments of the assault, in line with the village management.
Now, the terrorists had been going home by home, looking for folks to kill and kidnap.
“Please ship assist,” Ms. Cherry typed into her cellphone.
On the Cherrys’ home, they compelled within the door. Then they charged in, shouting and ransacking the home, Ms. Cherry mentioned.
“We’re going to die,” Ms. Cherry remembered considering.
The household waited in terrified silence, hoping the intruders would ignore the door to the bed room and assume everybody was away.
Mr. and Mrs. Cherry put all their weight towards the cupboard, to brace the chair beneath the door deal with.
Man, 15, their eldest son, stood subsequent to the door, holding an 18-pound dumbbell. If somebody did break in, the plan was to drop it on the assailant’s head.
Then the deal with twitched.
The dad and mom started to push the cupboard.
The deal with continued to rattle.
Then it stopped. The assailant walked away.
Just a few streets away, the household of Miki Levi, who oversees the kibbutz gardens, had an excellent nearer name.
After a terrorist squad chased Mr. Levi, 47, inside his secure room, the attackers sprayed bullets on the bolstered door, Mr. Levi mentioned in an interview.
A number of the bullets pierced the door, creating massive openings, and Mr. Levi mentioned he additionally fired again together with his pistol, shredding it additional. His spouse and two younger daughters sheltered to the facet.
Altering ways, the terrorists later introduced two of his neighbors — a mom and her 12-year-old daughter, Mr. Levi mentioned.
At gunpoint, the mom and little one had been advised to influence him to open up, Mr. Levi mentioned.
“‘Come out and cease capturing,’” Mr. Levi recounted one in every of them saying. “‘The terrorists gained’t do something to you.’”
Ultimately, the terrorists gave up that strategy and returned with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, Mr. Levi mentioned.
It was solely when Mr. Levi shot one attacker within the thigh that they lastly left, he added.
The mom and little one, Mr. Levi suspects, at the moment are captives in Gaza.
‘Our bodies Have been Burning’
Brig. Gen. Dan Goldfus mentioned he drove south with out understanding the place precisely he ought to go.
Common Goldfus, 46, a paratrooper commander, had been on depart at house, jogging in his neighborhood north of Tel Aviv. Then he noticed a video from the south, displaying terrorists cruising by way of a metropolis, completely unimpeded.
With out ready for orders, the final mentioned he ran house, become his uniform and headed south.
He picked up weapons and two troopers from his base in central Israel, and known as pals and colleagues to search out out what was occurring.
Just a few picked up. Of the remainder, “There was no one actually understanding the total image,” Common Goldfus mentioned in an interview.
The velocity, precision and scale of Hamas’s assault had thrown the Israeli navy into disarray, and for a lot of hours afterward civilians had been left to fend for themselves.
Utilizing the few scraps of knowledge he may glean, Common Goldfus mentioned he and the troopers headed to a village north of Nahal Oz, after which step by step labored their method south.
It was round 10 a.m. Throughout him was carnage and atrocity.
Lifeless Israelis lined the roads, alongside the husks of burned-out, overturned vehicles.
On the web site of an all-night outside rave, gunmen had killed an estimated 260 partygoers.
“Our bodies had been burning,” Common Goldfus remembered seeing on the web site.
The assault by Hamas had unleashed a violent free-for-all. Some residents of Gaza had poured over the undefended border after it was breached, at occasions streaming what they had been doing on their telephones. Gazans had been looting and ransacking properties, taking computer systems, garments, crockery, televisions and telephones, survivors mentioned.
In some Israeli villages, residents had been burned alive of their properties, whereas terrorists stalked civilians at each flip, in search of folks to seize and kill. Grandparents, toddlers and a nine-month-old child had been seized and brought again to Gaza, a few of them squeezed between their kidnappers on bikes.
And through a lot of the mayhem, the Israeli military was virtually nowhere to be seen.
Close to Kibbutz Reim, Common Goldfus mentioned he bumped into one other senior commander by likelihood. Like him, the officer had rushed to the scene on intuition, with none directions, and had assembled a small group of troopers.
There after which, the 2 males got here up with their very own advert hoc technique.
“There’s no orders right here,” Common Goldfus mentioned. “I mentioned: ‘You are taking from this place and additional south — and I’ll take from this place and additional north.’”
That was how among the Israeli counterattack befell: troopers or civilian volunteers — together with retired generals of their 60s — dashing to the area and doing what they might.
Israel Ziv, a former basic, reached a close-by battle in his Audi.
Yair Golan, a retired deputy chief of employees and former leftist lawmaker, mentioned he took a gun and commenced rescuing survivors of a bloodbath at a rave, who had been hiding in close by bushes.
“We’re introduced as much as run as quick as doable towards the fireplace,” mentioned Common Goldfus. “In order that we might be the primary one there.”
‘It’s O.Okay. We’re Jewish.’
The intelligence hub close to Gaza was one of many first locations to be recaptured by Israel.
Within the late morning, troopers and reservists from totally different models reached the bottom from separate instructions, overpowering the ten Gazan gunmen who had filmed their lethal assault on video.
The digicam mounted on the Hamas commander’s head captured the second he was shot and killed. The digicam falls off, bouncing alongside the bottom. By the point the video stops, the commander might be seen slumped on the bottom, revealing his lengthy beard and thinning hairline.
In different components of southern Israel, the primary formal reinforcements got here from an Israeli commando unit that arrived in helicopters, in line with the senior Israeli officer.
They had been adopted by different particular operations models, together with Israeli navy seals and a reconnaissance unit skilled to function deep inside enemy traces, somewhat than on Israeli soil.
Generally, the commandos joined forces with volunteers with out physique armor who had rushed into the fray to rescue members of the family.
Noam Tibon, a former basic, drove south together with his pistol to attempt to retake Kibbutz Nahal Oz, the place his son, Amir, a journalist, was trapped.
Within the early afternoon, the elder Mr. Tibon joined a squad that was making its method by way of the kibbutz, home by home.
By Sunday afternoon, a number of villages and bases nonetheless had some sort of Hamas presence. The entire space wouldn’t be absolutely secured for days.
Ms. Cherry emerged round 5 p.m. on Saturday in Kibbutz Nahal Oz to search out her house turned the other way up, the microwave torn from the wall, drawers ripped from their cupboards and a pool of drying blood on the ground.
She had heard a gun battle in and round her house earlier within the day. She believed a terrorist had died in the home — and that his bloodied corpse had been carried off by fellow fighters.
Some survivors refused to open up, even after the military arrived.
When troopers reached the house of Oshrit Sabag, one other resident of Kibbutz Nahal Oz, she feared they had been terrorists in disguise.
Even after the troopers started chatting to at least one one other in Hebrew, to show who they had been, Ms. Sabag, 48, was unconvinced.
It was solely their Jewish prayers that made her loosen up.
“‘It’s O.Okay., it’s O.Okay.,’” Ms. Sabag remembered them saying. “‘We’re Jewish.’”
Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
