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Hamas Terror on Israel

D. Attack on kibbutz Nir’Oz

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General information and timeline

Section titled “General information and timeline”

  1. The attack on kibbutz Nir Oz resulted in the killing of 46 civilians1, including women, children, older people and those with foreign nationalities, equivalent to almost 10 percent of the population of the kibbutz. Members of the military wings of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement and the Popular Resistance Committees as well as armed and unarmed civilians from Gaza were involved in the attack and abducted 72 residents of the kibbutz to the Gaza Strip.2 This represents the largest group of people abducted from one single location. As of May 2024, at least five of them have died or been killed in captivity, either by their captors or by the Israeli military. Some 100 militants and civilians from Gaza attacked the kibbutz that day. There was virtually no fighting between Israeli Security Forces and attackers in Nir Oz, because the Israeli forces arrived at the kibbutz at least one hour after most of the attackers had left, leaving the residents essentially defenceless.

  2. According to evidence gathered by the Commission, the attack on Nir Oz started at 06:49, when two cars drove into the kibbutz through the northern gate (one of the two main entrances of the kibbutz). Seconds later, at least four armed militants passed through the entrance on foot.

  3. At the same time, militants breached the western side of the kibbutz and immediately started targeting and killing civilians. The first killing in the kibbutz was documented as early as 06:57. At that time, relatives of 74-year-old Bracha Levinson viewed a video uploaded to her Facebook page showing her lying in a pool of blood in the living room of her house in Nir Oz with a man pointing a gun at her. Family members later learned that Levinson’s house was burned down with her body inside. It took one month for her remains to be officially identified.

  4. From 07:15, militants were walking around and driving motorbikes inside the kibbutz, and later in the morning they started breaking into houses, shooting at families in hiding and abducting them. At 08:40, a group of Palestinian civilians entered the kibbutz. Members of the group drove around the kibbutz, looting bikes, tractors and other equipment.

  5. From 10:00 onwards, messaging in the residents’ chat group intensified, reporting attackers breaking into houses and setting them on fire, as well as killings and abductions. According to the testimonies of survivors, the attackers were operating without resistance in the kibbutz. They left the kibbutz to return to Gaza sometime between 13:00 and 13:23.

  6. According to reports, the kibbutz’s rapid response team was inadequately prepared to counter the attackers. Many could not reach the armoury to pick up weapons, while those with weapons did not have sufficient ammunition. At least one member of the rapid response team was killed during the attack and the commander of the team was injured. At 13:50, the first Israeli troops started arriving at the kibbutz. Fighters from marine commando unit Shayetet 13 arrived by helicopter at 14:40. Despite the militants’ departure to Gaza, followed by the security forces’ arrival, messages continued to be posted in the kibbutz chat groups with requests for help until 17:30. The rescue and evacuation of the surviving residents to Eilat was only concluded on the afternoon of 8 October 2023.

Killing and causing bodily harm

Section titled “Killing and causing bodily harm”

  1. At 06:06 70-year-old Judith Weinstein and 73-year-old Gadi Haggai, both dual US-Israeli nationals, left their home for a morning walk. Weinstein filmed the rocket fire at 06:35 and the arrival of the militants on motorbikes, who shot her and her husband sometime before 07:00, leaving them lying down on the ground. The couple was considered missing until 28 December 2023, when it was announced that Weinstein was killed on 7 October 2023 and her body was taken to Gaza, while Haggai was alive when he was abducted by members of armed groups and later died in captivity. On 6 January 2024, the Mujahideen Brigades published a video accusing Binyamin Netanyahu of the death of Weinstein and Haggai. As of May 2024, their bodies were being held in Gaza.

  2. Militants also killed 79-year-old Carmela Dan along with her 12-year-old granddaughter, Noya Dan, a girl on the autistic spectrum, who was visiting during that weekend. The two hid in the safe room of Carmela’s house. Militants started attacking the house at around 11:00. Noya Dan sent several voice messages to her mother sometime after 12:02 telling her that there was an explosion at the house . By 12:28 Carmela and Noya did not respond to messages anymore. Following the attack it was discovered that the house had been set on fire. Israeli authorities considered the two as hostages until 19 October 2023, when it was officially announced that their bodies were discovered by Israeli Security Forces, in the Gaza Strip, near the border with Israel. Their remains were later identified using DNA matching analysis. According to Israeli sources, Noya and Carmela were killed while being abducted, allegedly because they were slowing down their captors.

Abduction

Section titled “Abduction”

  1. Those abducted from Nir Oz included Israelis, foreigners 3 and people with dual nationality. They ranged in age from 9 months to 85 years, with a 9-month-old baby being the youngest person abducted to Gaza during the 7 October attack. Seventy-two people were abducted from Nir Oz, including 35 women, 21 people aged over 65 and 14 children, constituting almost half the total number of children abducted on 7 October 2023, which was 31.

  2. Based on evidence verified by the Commission, attackers started abducting civilians shortly after 08:00. Two brothers aged 13 and 16 years old were abducted at around 8:10. In an interview with the Associated Press, the boys’ mother reported that during the attack her sons were hiding in the safe room of her house, while she was away in another kibbutz. At 08:10, her 13 year old son called to tell her that gunmen had broken into the house. She noted that, while on the phone with her son, she could hear voices shouting in Arabic and her son saying “Don’t take me. I’m too young.” The brothers were abducted to Gaza, and later released during the November 2023 ceasefire. Their father was killed on the day of the attack and his partner was also abducted to Gaza.

  3. Family members of an 84-year-old woman, who had been hiding in the safe room of her house since the beginning of the attack, lost contact with her at around 10:00. A video posted online by Palestinian Islamic Jihad showed scenes of the woman being hauled into a white pickup truck by two armed militants. According to her daughter, the abduction was witnessed by a neigbour, who tried to rescue her but was shot at by the militants and had to retreat back to the safe room of his house. Family members stated that, when they tried to call her phone at 16:00 that day, someone with an Arabic accent answered in English and said: “It’s Hamas, it’s Hamas.” She was released from captivity on 28 November 2023.

  4. Three generations of an Israeli-Argentinian family from kibbutz Nir Oz were attacked on 7 October. Militants and unarmed civilians from Gaza abducted the entire family: 34-year-old father, 32-year-old mother and their four year old and nine-month-old infants. The children’s grandparents were considered missing until 21 October 2023, when their bodies were recovered near the Gaza border and it was confirmed that they had been killed on 7 October.4

  5. At around 14:00 on 7 October, the Associated Press published a series of photos depicting one of the family members being transported by the attackers near the border with Gaza. The photos depict the father sitting on a motorbike between two men in civilian clothes, with his head covered in blood. His hands are covering his head, while people from the crowd surround the motorbike and try to hit him. In another image from the same day, he is seen surrounded by people in civilian clothes, his hands bloody, and he is barefoot. All the people in the crowd are seemingly unarmed and dressed as civilians with the exception of one photograph depicting a militant in combat webbing with the insignia of Al-Qassam Brigades. Based on the photographic and video evidence depicting the kidnapping of the family, the Commission concludes on reasonable grounds that Palestinian civilians directly participated in this incident.

  6. An 85-year-old woman was abducted from Nir Oz by members of the military wing of Hamas during the 7 October attack. In an interview given following her release from captivity, she stated that the attackers broke into her house, stole all of her money and then forced her into a golf cart and drove her to Gaza.

  7. Photos of the abductee arriving in Gaza, verified by the Commission, depict her sitting with two abductors in the golf cart, one of whom was armed and wearing combat webbing and the distinctive green headband of the al-Qassam Brigades, while the driver of the cart is unarmed and dressed as a civilian. Another video of her golf cart situated in a densely built district of Gaza appeared on social media platforms at approximately 09:45, indicating that she was abducted between 09:00 and 09:40. In the video the golf cart is surrounded by a crowd of people shouting in Arabic and seemingly celebrating the arrival of the hostage. After she was released, she said that there were “people all around … spitting and shouting”.

  8. Another family from Nir Oz was abducted almost in its entirety during the attack. The family included a 34-year-old woman, her 68-year-old mother and her two daughters aged four and two, who had been visiting the grandmother that weekend. On hearing the siren at 06:30, the family hid in the grandmother’s safe room, along with her 79-year-old partner. After an initial ransacking of the house by militants, the grandmother’s partner came out of the safe room and tried to negotiate with the militants in Arabic. The attackers asked him for money and the keys to the car and then abducted him. At approximately 11:00, another group of militants broke into the house. They put the two women and two girls in the cart of a tractor and drove them off to Gaza. Later that day, a video was uploaded on social media showing the family in the back of a tractor guarded by an armed militant in combat vest and with a GoPro camera on his forehead. Mother and daughters were released from captivity on 14 November 2023, while the grandmother was killed on the way to Gaza. As of May 2024, the grandmother’s 79-year-old partner remains in captivity.

  9. According to the 34-year old released abductee’s testimony, on the way to Gaza, an exchange of fire erupted between the militants and Israeli Security Forces, who were trying to stop them. As a result of the shooting, her mother was killed, while she herself was wounded in her back and one of her daughters was wounded in her leg.

  10. Several members of another family from Nir Oz were killed or abducted during the 7 October attack, including Carmela and Noya Dan (see para 54 of this report). Another member of the same family, who was 52 years old at the time, was abducted to Gaza with his two children, aged 16 and 11 years old respectively. Like many other families, they had been hiding in their safe room when attackers entered the house, prompting the man and his two children to escape through the window and hide in nearby bushes. According to the children’s mother, who was hiding in a different house of the kibbutz, at 08:30 she received the last communication from the children, in which they told her that they were in the bushes and the militants were close to them. In an interview following her release, the 16-year-old daughter stated that, after spending two hours in hiding, they were discovered and had to flee again. One of the militants shot at her legs but missed. Eventually, she could not catch up with her father and a group of 10 armed Palestinian men dressed in civilian clothing abducted her. The group also included two Palestinian children. Two of the men put her on a motorcycle and drove off to Gaza.

  11. Her 11-year-old brother was abducted separately from his sister and father. The Commission viewed and verified a video depicting his abduction, showing a man dressed in civilian clothes holding the boy under his arms, pulling him away in the direction of the western gate of the kibbutz. The abductor is accompanied by another man in civilian clothes armed with an automatic rifle and a Palestinain minor boy. The siblings were released on 27 November 2023, while their father remains in captivity as of 31 May 2024.

  12. As of May 2024, 40 Nir Oz abductees, including 25 women, 12 children (seven girls and five boys), two Thai nationals and one resident from Philippines, have been released. At least 27 Israeli hostages from Nir Oz, including two women and two minors, remain in Gaza.5 As of May 2024, at least eight hostages from Nir Oz have died in captivity, including one woman and five people aged over 65, and the deaths of three more hostages have been announced by various militant groups, though not yet confirmed by the Israeli Security Forces.

Destruction of property

Section titled “Destruction of property”
  1. A damage assessment conducted by the Israeli Engineers Association in Nir Oz found that over 80 percent of the residential buildings in the kibbutz were severely damaged as a result of the 7 October attack. Most of these houses were affected by fire: “All the structures were either burned down, or the house was destroyed to the point that not a single thing was left intact.”

Sources

Footnotes

Section titled “Footnotes”

  1. https://www.gov.il/en/departments/news/swords-of-iron-civilian-casualties ↩

  2. https://govextra.gov.il/media/qxpetcbv/isra%C3%ABl-hostages-bring-them-home-october-24-english.pdf ↩

  3. https://www.gov.il/en/departments/news/return-of-hostages-24-nov-2023 ↩

  4. https://www.gov.il/en/departments/news/swords-of-iron-civilian-casualties. ↩

  5. https://www.gov.il/en/departments/news/return-of-hostages-24-nov-2023 ↩