On 7 October 2023, the Hamas Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades (Al-Qassam Brigades) attacked Holit, a kibbutz close to the border fence with the Gaza Strip, as part of a surprise attack on Israel.
Sixteen people were killed in the attack, including three foreign workers as well as three members of the security forces. About 20 of the attacking militants were also killed.
Nine hostages were taken during the attack. Three were released on the day of the attack after entering Gaza and made it back to Israel that same day. An additional two were released during the Israeli–Palestinian prisoner exchange. The bodies of two others were recovered on 8 January 2025.
Background
The kibbutz was established in 1977 in the Sinai and was transferred to the Negev as part of the 1982 Egypt–Israel peace treaty. In 2024 it had a population of 223 in 53 families.
Attack
At 6:30 on the morning of 7 October, 20 militants from Hamas' Al-Qassam Brigades invaded Israel and approached the kibbutz. According to the IDF investigation, about 60 militants participated in the attack on the kibbutz. There was evidence that many residents were still asleep or eating breakfast when the attack began.
At 6:45 a.m., the first militants were identified just outside Holit by the kibbutz security coordinator, Avi Korin, and his deputy. Ten minutes later, IDF soldiers monitoring surveillance cameras spotted an estimated 15 militants near the kibbutz and dispatched forces. Two patrol vehicles carrying soldiers and an armored vehicle were dispatched. The patrol vehicles arrived at the entrance to the kibbutz in two minutes but could not enter it as the gate would not open, while the armored vehicle got stuck while leaving its base and was caught up in fighting. At 6:59 a.m., the militants blasted a hole in the community's eastern perimeter fence and entered Holit, beginning a murder, destruction, and looting spree.
At around 7:10 a.m., kibbutz security chief Avi Korin was killed while fighting the militants. His deputy continued to fight as further waves of militants entered the kibbutz. At 7:18 a.m., the two patrol vehicles arrived at the hole in the perimeter fence and came under fire. The vehicles rammed several motorcycle-riding militants before leaving to fight in another area after the soldiers receiving reports that their commander had been wounded there..
Over the following hours, militants breached dozens of homes, killed and abducted residents, and set fires. The Hamas militants went from house to house shooting at the metal shutters of safe rooms to determine from noise from within whether they were occupied. They then attempted to breach occupied safe rooms using grenades and shooting. When they were able to breach the safe rooms they killed the occupants. In several cases they returned to houses and set them alight to force any occupants to exit. ZAKA volunteers reported that grenades had been thrown into houses, people shot, and vehicles blown up as residents tried to flee.
Rotem Mathias described his mother hiding him under a blanket and lying on top of him to protect him as they heard militants outside. He heard the militants break in with grenades and kill his parents.
Before entering their safe room Anat Dymshits and her father saw neighbors’ houses being lit on fire. Anat managed, together with three other residents, to save one neighbour from her burning house by pulling her out of a window. Anat then returned safely to her house. At the same time, her parents managed to dampen the area so the fires did not spread. Dymshits and her father, Yosef Rozhansky (67), were hiding in her safe room with her mother, grandmother, her four children and their dog. They describe how militants tried to breach the room by throwing a grenade at the door. Although this was unsuccessful at gaining entry, shrapnel from the grenade went under the door injuring the three elderly adults — Rozhansky lost his leg — and one of her daughters.
Avital Aladjem was hiding in her house with her neighbor Hayim Katsman. When militants broke into her house and shot them, Katsman protected her with his body and was killed. She was unharmed and taken captive.
Yuval Rabivo heard that militants wanted to kill men first so he went and stood outside hoping they would kill him but leave his wife, Ilan, and his children alone. He was not attacked. Husband and wife Nir and Adam and their children survived because Adam was able to hold the door shut against militants trying to gain entry.
Shir Azoulai, another resident whose safe room was not breached, had her house was ransacked twice. She managed to save a neighbour who had already succumbed to smoke fumes in the neighbour's safe room. Naama and Gideon Kovani sheltering in their safe room heard that their next door neighbour had been killed and her daughter was hiding in a closet. Naama encouraged Gideon to save the child, which he managed to do without incident.
Withawat Kunwong, a Thai employee of the kibbutz reported being attacked in his hiding place by what he described as a Palestinian wearing civilian clothes and wielding a knife. He fought the person but was left for dead with severe throat wounds. Fellow employees found him and looked after him. He credits his survival to the bluntness of the knife which left him with jagged scars. He returned to his wife and children in Thailand once he recovered.
According to the IDF investigation, between 7 and 8 a.m. militants abducted six hostages at the kibbutz cowshed, consisting of four Bedouin Israelis from the Ziyadne family and two foreign workers, and killed another.
Amid the massacre, armed residents resisted the attack. Shimon Azoulai, a resident, had a weapon and fought militants "where he could", but he said he did not have much impact. He survived the attack. In one incident, after militants broke into a home at 7:20 a.m. and murdered a couple as their 7 year old daughter hid in a closet, an armed neighbor rescued the girl three hours later while shooting two militants. At 7:30 a.m., a militant who broke into a home was killed by an armed resident. An hour later, militants placed an explosive charge on the window of the house's safe room, severely wounding his daughter and lightly wounding his wife. Kibbutz resident Adi Vital-Kaploun called her husband, who was not at home, asking for instructions on how to use his M16 rifle. After a militant broke into her home at 12:30 p.m., she shot him dead using the rifle. Shortly afterward, other militants entered her home and killed her in front of her children, remaining in the house with the children until around 2:00 p.m. At around 12:55 p.m., an Israeli Air Force attack helicopter arrived and scanned the kibbutz for about half an hour, firing several shells to try to locate militants, but failing to do so. At about the same time, militants made several attempts to enter the home of the deputy security coordinator, who killed at least one and wounded another.
Michael Raitzin, a resident of the kibbutz, and the head of the criminal investigation unit of the police in the largest Bedouin city in Israel, Rahat, which is close to the kibbutz, was on leave on the day of the attack, but heard from his colleagues at around 7:30 a.m. that an incursion had occurred, although at that time he did not realise the scale. Armed with his service pistol, he prepared to go and assist in Rahat. However, when he got to his vehicle he observed 20 heavily armed militants. Realizing he could not fight them with his handgun, he fired random shots to distract them, and managed to return to his house via an indirect route. He spent the rest of the day at the window of his house intending to protect his wife and children if necessary. His house was not attacked.
At 1:53 p.m., Israeli troops arrived at the kibbutz and began fighting to clear it. At 2:00 p.m., two soldiers were wounded while battling militants holed up in a house. At 2:06 p.m., additional forces arrived including a tank operated by an all-female crew, which knocked down the entrance gate, enabling the troops to enter. At 2:10 p.m., an Israeli soldier was killed in the fighting. From 2:30 to 3:30 p.m., with the arrival of the IDF, the militants began retreating. They took Avital Aladjem and the Vital-Kaploun children with them to Gaza as they left. Alajdem was subsequently left alone with the two children in Gaza for unknown reasons. She then walked them back to the kibbutz, passing retreating militants along the way. Meanwhile, additional Israeli forces arrived, searched the area, and engaged retreating militants. At 3:55 p.m., commandos of the Shaldag Unit identified a group of retreating militants, fired on them, and directed the tank to the area, which subsequently ran over several of the militants. The female tank crew took fire from two groups of militants, who were either killed or chased away, during the fighting. Starting at 4:30 p.m., residents were evacuated from the community as soldiers continued to scan the area for militants.
Damiel Kukushkin, who had been sheltering in his safe room the whole day, was only released from his house at 7:30 p.m. as the troops cleared houses one at a time. As a former paramedic, he helped the IDF identify bodies. He reported seeing "mountains" of Hamas militants’ corpses.
On the following day, at around 10:15 a.m., soldiers encountered several militants in orchards east of the kibbutz and engaged them. The militants were killed and three soldiers were wounded in the subsequent exchange of fire. On 9 October, soldiers found and killed additional militants in the orchards.
Casualties and hostages
Sixteen people were killed in the attack. The community's oldest member, Moshe Ridler, a 91 year-old Holocaust survivor and retired police detective, was among those killed. Three members of the security forces were killed: the kibbutz security coordinator, another member of the kibbutz security team, and a reservist soldier. Among the dead were Israelis with dual nationality from the United States, Canada and Argentina were killed. Three foreign workers were killed during the attack: a Moldovan employee who was Ridler's caregiver and two Nepali workers.
At least eight members of the kibbutz or their visiting families were injured. They all recovered.
According to the IDF investigation of the attack, about 20 Palestinian militants were killed in the fighting during the attack.
Families in the kibbutz
Ridler / Busko
Moshe Ridler and his Moldovan carer, Petro Busko, were killed during the attack. Ridler was born in Romania in 1931, and was sent to a concentration camp in Eastern Europe in 1941, when he was 9. He managed to escape when he was 11 and eventually made his way to Israel. His mother and sister did not survive the Holocaust.
Mathias Family
Shachar Mathias (English name Deborah, but she went by her Hebrew name), a dual American-Israeli citizen, and her husband Shlomi Mathias were peace activists living in Holit with their 16-year-old son Rotem. Their 19 and 21-year old daughters also lived separately in the Kibbutz. Her father, Ilan Troen, is professor emeritus of Israel Studies at Brandeis University, and at Bar-Ilan University of the Negev. They were talking on the phone on the morning of the attack when she said she heard gunshots, breaking glass and Arabic being spoken, after which the conversation was cut. The next Troen and the family heard was a message from Rotem on the family text group saying: "Mom and Dad are dead. I'm sorry. Please send help." Although he was shot in the stomach help did not arrive for another 13 hours.
He said the noise his mother heard were militants breaking into the house. His mother ordered him to lie under some thick blanketing and then lay over him shielding his body with hers. As the militants broke into their safe room Rotem heard two explosions which he thought were grenades. He then heard shots, and his father screaming as he died. He felt his mother's body twitch on top of him and then she was still. Her body protected him from most of the bullets except for one which entered his stomach, but was not fatal, since her body absorbed the bullet's impact.