During the October 7 attacks on Israel, Hamas militants carried out a massacre at Be'eri, a kibbutz near the Gaza Strip. Hundreds of Gazan militants and civilian looters attacked the kibbutz, killing and abducting civilians while facing resistance from armed residents. Israeli security forces regained control by the evening of 8 October. A total of 101 Israeli civilians and 31 security personnel were killed and 32 hostages were taken from the kibbutz. At least 100 Gazan militants were also killed and 18 were captured by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the kibbutz security force.
Among the civilians killed were women (such as peace activist Vivian Silver), children, and one infant, claiming the lives of 10% of the farming community's residents. A total of 125 homes in the community were damaged or destroyed. Among the dead were twelve-year-old fraternal twins Liel and Yanai Hetzroni, whose father stated that the Hamas terrorists had come to the kibbutz only "to kill, murder, maim Jewish children, babies, parents and old people, all because they lived in the Jewish homeland."
This incident occurred concurrently with a series of other Palestinian attacks on Israel, including the Netiv HaAsara, Kfar Aza, and Nova music festival massacres. Several newspapers described the massacre as an act of terrorism, with CNN describing it as "the symbol of Hamas' brutality."
Background
Be'eri is a kibbutz established in 1946 as one of the 11 points in the Negev of the Jewish Agency. Its members are generally on the secular left, and it includes many peace activists, some of whom assisted Palestinians in Gaza.
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. The PIJ participated in the attack, as did other armed groups. The DFLP claimed that its troops (organized as National Resistance Brigades) fought the IDF in Be'eri. The IDF probe into the massacre estimated that at the height of the massacre there were 340 attackers in Be'eri, including 120 members of Hamas' Nukhba unit, 70 additional Hamas militants, and 150 members of the Islamic Jihad Movement, other armed factions, and Gazan civilian looters.
The Hamas attack on southern Israel began at 6:30 AM. Amid a heavy rocket barrage, Hamas militants broke through the border barrier into Israel, attacking civilian communities and military bases. The IDF's Paga outpost, located very close to the kibbutz and known internally in the IDF as the "Be'eri protector" outpost, was attacked. The soldiers there were forced to fight off the militants attacking their base and were unable to defend Be'eri. Other forces stationed in the area went to fight the attackers at kibbutz Nahal Oz, leaving Be'eri unprotected.
At 6:42 AM, Hamas militants from the 2nd company of the Nuseirat Battalion crossed the border and headed towards Be'eri on motorcycles. The first of them reached Be’eri at 06:56, with the last members reaching the kibbutz at 7:20 AM. In the meantime, the Nuseirat Battalion's 1st and 3rd companies perpetrated the Re'im music festival massacre and later headed towards Netivot, but turned back en route after spotting an Israeli tank and per instructions given by Hamas commanders, joined the 2nd company in the attack on Be'eri hours after the attack began. Hamas militants entered the kibbutz from two directions.
The kibbutz's 13-member security team responded to the infiltration. Arik Kraunik, the head of the security team, spotted the first Hamas militants as they approached the main entrance of the kibbutz on motorcycles. He notified the IDF and residents, and instructed the other members of the security team to meet at the kibbutz armory, which had most of their assault rifles. Kraunik approached the main entrance as two militants breached it and was killed in an exchange of fire. The two militants then moved through the kibbutz towards the northwestern side where additional militants were streaming in, killing civilians and members of the security team along the way. Meanwhile, Ilan Weiss, the deputy commander of the security team who lived on the western side of the kibbutz, was killed by militants as he headed towards the armory. His body was seized and taken to Gaza. As only Kraunik and Weiss had the keys to the armory, the surviving members of the security team had no access to the arsenal of assault rifles. They had between them six M16 assault rifles and some pistols.
The militants subsequently moved through the kibbutz, murdering civilians and setting homes on fire. The attackers shot and threw grenades, massacred the occupants of homes, and set some houses on fire with Molotov cocktails. They also abducted 32 people of whom 30 were kibbutz residents and two were civilians who had sought refuge there after fleeing the Re'im music festival massacre, taking them to the Gaza Strip. Videos emerged showing hostages being led barefoot across a street in town. The militants were accompanied by a camera team and journalist who documented the attack and extolled it as a Palestinian victory. The kibbutz security team and several other armed residents, including reserve IDF General Yossi Bachar, resisted the attack, preventing the militants from advancing to the center of the kibbutz. The IDF's investigation found that the resistance offered by the residents prevented a wider massacre from taking place.
As the attack unfolded, residents barricaded themselves in their safe rooms. Those who were members of a mothers' WhatsApp group in the kibbutz kept in touch throughout the attack, trying to piece together what was going on. Tutorials on locking doors were shared on the WhatsApp group, but concerns were expressed over the shelters' inability to stop attackers. In one instance, a resident built a makeshift locking device out of ropes and a baseball bat and gripped it throughout the time he and his family spent in the safe room. 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 killed during the attack, shot through the door of a safe room while held in the arms of her mother. In numerous instances, militants blew up the safe room doors and killed those inside. In one case, after walking into a home and finding the 99 year old Anadad Eldan and his 88 year old wife Shari, they spared them. Eldan was the author of a noted poem on Gaza entitled 'Samson Tearing His Clothes.'
At 9:03 AM, 13 commandos from the elite Shaldag Unit of the Israeli Air Force arrived at Kibbutz Be'eri by helicopter. They would be the only IDF unit in Be'eri until about 1:30 PM. According to the IDF investigation, until that time there were 26 armed Israelis facing an estimated 340 attackers in the kibbutz. The Shaldag soldiers joined the fight alongside the residents. After one soldier was killed and another seriously wounded, the Shaldag team withdrew to the kibbutz entrance. The failure to continue fighting alongside the residents was later found by the IDF investigation to represent poor decision-making and a serious professional error. The Shaldag team repositioned itself at the entrance and killed several militants. They would later return to fight inside the kibbutz. Additional Shaldag forces later arrived. An Israeli CH-53D helicopter was destroyed on the ground by Hamas militants hours after the attack.
At 11:30 AM, civilians from the Gaza Strip began entering Be'eri to loot. The Nuseirat Battalion's 1st and 3rd companies arrived in the kibbutz at 12:15 PM. According to the IDF investigation, all of the hostages captured in Be'eri had been taken by 1 PM. Additional abductions were attempted after that time but were unsuccessful. At 1:30 PM, Sayeret Matkal commandos, who had been delayed after encountering militants on Route 232 as they approached the kibbutz, arrived in Be'eri. The Shaldag and Sayeret Matkal forces subsequently pushed into the kibbutz from opposite sides to clear out militants and rescue civilians. Meanwhile, the 890th Battalion of the 35th Paratroopers Brigade arrived in Be'eri and began to sweep the kibbutz.
More military and police forces arrived and joined the battle. At 4:15 PM, Brigadier General Barak Hiram, the commander of the 99th Infantry Division who had been appointed to command the forces in the Be'eri sector by IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi hours earlier, arrived at the kibbutz. However, progress was hampered by a lack of coordination. The military investigation found that the lack of coordination led to large numbers of troops gathering outside the community and delaying their entry, with at times dozens of soldiers and police officers gathered in the parking lot awaiting instructions before joining the fight. Some troops were ordered to evacuate civilians instead of engage, others initially fought before withdrawing to evacuate wounded soldiers, and in some cases troops waited for their commanders to arrive before entering. Eight police officers were killed in an ambush by militants with RPGs as they drove around the kibbutz to reach its western side and join the fighting. In the evening, commanders briefed troops before sending them in to the kibbutz to avoid friendly fire incidents, causing a large buildup of forces outside the kibbutz. From 1:30 PM to 10:00 PM, Israeli forces advanced through the kibbutz and engaged in a series of gun battles with militants. According to the IDF investigation, the troops were careful not to open fire unless directly engaged in battle with militants, fearing the possibility of hitting civilians. Between 2:00 and 3:00 PM, the first civilians were evacuated, although most would be evacuated in the evening. At 5:00 PM, two tanks arrived in the kibbutz.
Between 10:00 PM and 5:00 AM on October 8, IDF troops continued to evacuate civilians and search for militants, although there were fewer engagements. The only suspected incident of friendly fire between troops during the fighting occurred overnight. Searches continued into the following day until the kibbutz was declared secured. 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. There were a number of clashes in the area with some militants still hiding out over the following days.
Hostage stand-off
A prominent incident during the fighting was a stand-off at the home of Pessi Cohen. According to a reconstruction of events by Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, published in June 2024, at 12:56 PM, about 40 militants broke into the home of Pessi Cohen, killing a civilian and wounding another. The house was then used to concentrate some 15 abducted Israelis. Six were held in the yard and nine inside the house, although according to the IDF investigation one of them was already dead.
At around 3:00 PM, the Hamas commander, Hassan Hamduna, asked hostage Yasmin Porat, a survivor of the Re'im music festival massacre who had sought shelter in Be'eri after fleeing the site of the festival, to contact the police and negotiate a safe conduit for the militants and their hostages to Gaza. Hamduna instructed her to falsely tell the police that there were 50 hostages in the house. At 3:08 PM, the first call was made to police regarding hostages being held in Be'eri. Due to a miscommunication, the report was forwarded to troops on the scene as a hostage situation in the kibbutz dining hall. At 3:59 PM, one of the militants in the house called his superiors in Gaza and told them that the IDF had arrived. Meanwhile, militants in the house engaged forces from the Yamam police commando unit with RPG and machine gun fire. The Yamam commandos responded by firing a shoulder-launched missile at the house. Shortly afterward, Israeli commanders realized that the hostages were being held at Cohen's house and not in the dining hall. The house was then surrounded. Israeli forces on the scene were not able to see the hostages in the yard.
As the two tanks arrived at 5:00 PM, one of them headed for Cohen's house, crushing several Hamas pickup trucks that had apparently been intended to transport the hostages. Meanwhile, Hamduna, still in contact with the authorities by telephone, declared his desire to surrender. He eventually stripped and stepped outside, using Porat as a human shield. After being arrested, he agreed to hail the remaining militants on a loudspeaker and call on them to lay down their arms, but the standoff continued.
Brigadier General Barak Hiram, who by that time had arrived in Be'eri but was not present at Cohen's house, gave approval to fire light tank shells near and at the building to pressure the militants inside to surrender. He was subsequently accused of ordering tank shells fired at the house "even at the cost of civilian casualties" but the IDF investigation cleared him. Four tank shells were fired in total. Footage of two of the shells being fired was captured from a helicopter overhead.