IDF forces refused to engage militants at Kibbutz Be'eri on October 7 and left kibbutz security personnel to fight the militants alone, members of the kibbutz's civilian security team recounted.

“What I remember most, and what was most shocking to me from this ordeal, was arriving at the entrance to the kibbutz and seeing 500 soldiers positioned in an organized and orderly manner standing and looking at us,” Yair Avital, a survivor of the kibbutz’s security team, told Channel 12 in a report broadcast on Wednesday. .

Be'eri was one of the communities most affected by the attack. More than 10% of the kibbutz's 1,200 residents were killed when about 3,000 Hamas gunmen stormed the Gaza border into Israel, killing 1,400 people in southern towns, army bases and at a music festival, wounding more than 5,400 others and detaining at least About 240 hostages and transporting them to Gaza.

Speaking to Channel 12 from the charred ruins of the kibbutz, Avital and other surviving members of the security team recounted their ordeal and the way they say the Israeli army abandoned them.

By 7:30 a.m., less than an hour after gunmen entered the kibbutz through its main entrance and through gaps in the fence, two members of the security team were killed and three others wounded, Avital recalled.

At that moment, five police officers arrived at the scene for the first time with only their pistols. Realizing they were ill-equipped, they withdrew to get more weapons. But as the scenes from Beeri were repeated across the Gaza border towns, they were transferred to other locations and did not return.

“You see it with your own eyes, you see the terrorists flocking into the kibbutz,” said Elam Maor, a survivor. Truck after truck drives here, probably under the influence of drugs. “They were an army with endless ammunition.”

(Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

IDF forces refused to engage militants at Kibbutz Be'eri on October 7 and left kibbutz security personnel to fight the militants alone, members of the kibbutz's civilian security team recounted.

“What I remember most, and what was most shocking to me from this ordeal, was arriving at the entrance to the kibbutz and seeing 500 soldiers positioned in an organized and orderly manner standing and looking at us,” Yair Avital, a survivor of the kibbutz’s security team, told Channel 12 in a report broadcast on Wednesday. .

Be'eri was one of the communities most affected by the attack. More than 10% of the kibbutz's 1,200 residents were killed when about 3,000 Hamas gunmen stormed the Gaza border into Israel, killing 1,400 people in southern towns, army bases and at a music festival, wounding more than 5,400 others and detaining at least About 240 hostages and transporting them to Gaza.

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Speaking to Channel 12 from the charred ruins of the kibbutz, Avital and other surviving members of the security team recounted their ordeal and the way they say the Israeli army abandoned them.

By 7:30 a.m., less than an hour after gunmen entered the kibbutz through its main entrance and through gaps in the fence, two members of the security team were killed and three others wounded, Avital recalled.

At that moment, five police officers arrived at the scene for the first time with only their pistols. Realizing they were ill-equipped, they withdrew to get more weapons. But as the scenes from Beeri were repeated across the Gaza border towns, they were transferred to other locations and did not return.

“You see it with your own eyes, you see the terrorists flocking into the kibbutz,” said Elam Maor, a survivor. Truck after truck drives here, probably under the influence of drugs. “They were an army with endless ammunition.”

Israeli soldiers walk past homes destroyed by Hamas militants in Kibbutz Be'eri, October 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

At 9 a.m., the first team of IDF soldiers arrived at the kibbutz, more than two hours after the first gunmen stormed the entry gate. But the soldiers, a team of 14 members from the elite Shaldag unit, quickly retreated to the entrance to the kibbutz.

On Wednesday, as he toured the dental clinic where medics treated the wounded and a security team fought until they ran out of bullets on October 7, Avital recounted to Channel 12 what he saw there that morning.

“At this point, Shahar and Eitan [from the security team] were fighting and we felt like we were winning,” he recounted. “Everyone who passed by (the gunmen), the men here killed him.”

But outside the clinic, fighting raged, and the exhausted security team continued to appeal to the IDF to send fighter jets and reinforcements.

Only at one o'clock in the afternoon, the squad of soldiers from the Shaldag unit returned, this time accompanied by a team from the elite Sayeret Matkal unit.

“They were able to make an impact for the first time; They were finally able to turn the tide a little in the areas where they were stationed,” said Yuval Weiss, a member of the security team.

By 2 p.m., the feeling inside the clinic had changed. As fighting raged outside, the clinic was surrounded by a squad of Hamas gunmen, while the pilot of a combat helicopter told the security team that he did not have permission to fire inside the kibbutz.

“At least eight grenades exploded here and we have already run out of ammunition,” Avital said as he walked through the destroyed and blood-stained clinic.

He continued, saying: “Shahar shouted at the terrorists in English, ‘I am not your enemy, please, I am not your enemy.’ Another hand grenade was thrown, and Shahar was no longer with us.”

Trapped in the clinic, surrounded by corpses and his own blood, Avital played death, holding his breath while the gunmen examined each body and executed anyone they thought might be alive.

At 6:30 p.m., IDF forces finally arrived at the clinic, where Avital and kibbutz nurse Nirit were the only survivors.

When he was evacuated from the kibbutz on a stretcher, Avital realized he could no longer put his trust in the army, he told Channel 12.

He said: “There were five hundred soldiers outside, organized, with dogs, equipment, weapons and armored vehicles; They stood outside and none of them moved a muscle.”

“I remember screaming at them from the stretcher: ‘They are slaughtering us!’ Come in! “Save us.’ None of them looked at me, and none of them said anything.”

“They kept repeating: ‘The field is not sterile, the square is not sterile,’” he continued, explaining that the insistence that the area needed to be “sterile” before the soldiers could enter it was a sign that none of them understood what was happening inside the kibbutz.

“No one understood that the well-known and familiar doctrine of the IDF no longer existed. People were bleeding every minute, and the army was not there and did not understand what was happening, and this broke my heart.”

It took the Israeli army two days to complete the evacuation of Kibbutz Be'eri and ensure that no militants remained there. Before the October 7 attack, the kibbutz was the largest population center among the 25 communities that make up the Eshkol Regional Council.

The militants recorded multiple scenes in Be'eri that day, including scenes of civilians pleading not to be killed.

The kibbutz, whose establishment preceded the establishment of the State of Israel by two years, emerged as a symbol of the attack due to its size and the volume and level of documentation of the killings committed there.

It has been almost a month since October 7, and Avital still cannot sleep, he told Channel 12 as he sat with other survivors from the Civil Security team.

“Once you close your eyes, many things appear,” he said. There is no bush or rock that I cannot imagine. What if we had gone in this direction or perhaps that direction? Perhaps we could have changed things and saved another family.”