The Israeli Military lookouts had been monitoring Hamas in Gaza throughout a safety fence from a base in southern Israel. Because it turned out, Hamas was additionally watching them.
The 4 girls launched by Hamas on Saturday after greater than 15 months in captivity in Gaza are “spotters” for the military who had been stationed in a small navy base a few half-mile from the border.
Within the first minutes of the Hamas-led daybreak assault on Oct. 7, 2023, gunmen burst by means of the fence and overran the bottom, Nahal Oz. Dozens of troopers had been killed, together with 15 spotters. The gunmen additionally dragged seven lookouts — unarmed feminine conscripts of their late teenagers — onto vehicles and drove them into Gaza. Some had been nonetheless of their pajamas, some bloodied from wounds.
One in all them, Pvt. Ori Megidish, 19, was rescued three weeks later by Israeli forces. One other, Cpl. Noa Marciano, 19, was injured in an Israeli airstrike after which killed by militants inside Gaza’s Shifa hospital, based on the navy. Hamas mentioned she died within the bombing.
4 of the remaining 5, Naama Levy, Karina Ariev and Daniella Gilboa, who at the moment are all 20, and Liri Albag, 19, had been launched on Saturday as a part of a cease-fire deal offering for the discharge of scores of Palestinian prisoners, lots of them convicted of killing Israelis. A fifth spotter, Agam Berger, is slated to be launched within the coming days or perhaps weeks underneath that deal, which got here into impact on Jan. 19.
Ms. Levy, Ms. Berger and Ms. Albag had been current recruits who had arrived on the base lower than two days earlier than the assault. The Israeli navy has not disclosed the rank of the captured troopers.
The seize of the lookouts underscored what many Israelis view because the worst military, intelligence and governmental debacle of their nation’s historical past. Their households are nonetheless ready for a proper investigation into the autumn of Nahal Oz.
Family and former lookouts mentioned the ladies had been on fixed alert for the potential of a cross-border raid, although they didn’t envisage something on the dimensions of the one which occurred.
“On a regular basis, they instructed us there’d be a raid,” mentioned Amit Yerushalmi, 22, a former lookout who served on the Nahal Ozbase from December 2021 till a few week earlier than the assault. However she mentioned they’d anticipated a localized occasion alongside the fence, like an try to abduct a few troopers.
“We’d joke about whose shift the raid would fall on,” Ms. Yerushalmi mentioned.
Within the months main as much as the assault, Ms. Yerushalmi mentioned, there have been rising indicators of one thing afoot. She mentioned the spotters noticed convoys of 20 to 30 white pickup vehicles crammed with Hamas fighters driving alongside the border with growing frequency, stopping sometimes and peering into Israel by means of binoculars. They’d additionally put up drones just a few instances a day, Ms. Yerushalmi mentioned.
The spotters reported the exercise, she and a number of other family members of the opposite lookouts mentioned, however had been instructed by their superiors that their job was to be the eyes, not the brains, of the Israeli navy. Their stories, they mentioned, appeared to have been dismissed.
The Israeli navy declined to touch upon the precise claims, however mentioned in an announcement that it was “reviewing the occasions of October 7 and what preceded them” with the purpose of deriving classes for the continuation of the military’s operations.
When the assault got here, hundreds of Hamas-led gunmen and marauders burst by means of the fence and overran navy bases, border villages and cities, in addition to a music competition. About 1,200 individuals had been killed in Israel that day, and one other 250 had been taken as hostages into Gaza, based on the Israeli authorities. The assault set off a 15-month conflict that has killed greater than 46,000 Palestinians, Gaza well being authorities say, and has left a lot of the coastal enclave in ruins.
It took hours for any backup forces to reach at Nahal Oz. The lookouts’ commanders had been at a distinct base, farther from the border.
“I nonetheless don’t know what actually occurred there,” mentioned Eyal Eshel, the daddy of Sgt. Roni Eshel, one of many 15 lookout troopers killed at Nahal Oz. Mr. Eshel performed his personal analysis into the occasions and is urgent for a proper inquiry into the failures on that day.
“I understood one factor,” Mr. Eshel mentioned of the analysis he had completed on the destiny of the spotters. “Their abandonment and the disdain for them was so nice.”
The night earlier than the raid, the lookouts had been in a festive temper, sharing a sabbath meal collectively, singing and saying goodbye to a staff member, Employees Sgt. Shahaf Nissani, 20, who was finishing her necessary service. Her mom had delivered meals to the bottom.
The lookouts labored four-hour shifts, with eight hours’ relaxation in between. They had been educated to by no means take their eyes off the screens within the operations room.
Karina Ariev’s household was not overly apprehensive when she was assigned to Nahal Oz, mentioned her cousin Anna Astmaker. “This was throughout the borders of the nation,” she mentioned. However Ms. Ariev instructed them she didn’t really feel secure there, her cousin mentioned.
Ms. Ariev, the daughter of immigrants from Ukraine, was on obligation from midnight till 4 a.m. early on Oct. 7. Sergeant Eshel was a part of one other group that took over at 4 a.m.
At 6:29 a.m., militants fired a barrage of rockets out of Gaza, offering a smoke display as exploding drones knocked out key communications and surveillance towers.
As sirens warned of incoming rocket hearth, the off-duty lookouts ran from their sleeping quarters to an aboveground shelter.
Inside minutes, waves of Hamas commandos had burst through Israel’s vaunted defenses, some in white pickup vehicles, and the bottom was shortly overrun.
Within the operations room, Sergeant Eshel was using codewords to report the raid because it unfolded in a voice rising with urgency, based on an audio recording launched by the navy. Then the cameras had been destroyed, and the monitoring screens went clean.
Dozens of armed troopers who had been stationed on the base on a rotation fought to their final bullets. The assailants shot and threw grenades into the shelter the place the lookouts had been hiding, killing and injuring lots of them.
Ms. Ariev known as her dad and mom from the shelter to say goodbye, based on Ms. Astmaker. She instructed them to proceed to stay if she didn’t survive, and continued texting with them till 7:20 a.m., when all contact was misplaced.
Footage quickly emerged on social media of Ms. Ariev and different lookouts being taken to Gaza.
There was scant details about them since. Ms. Ariev appeared in a hostage video a 12 months in the past with Ms. Gilboa and Doron Steinbrecher, one of three women released on Jan. 19.
Ms. Albag appeared this month in the most recent hostage video launched by Hamas, which analysts mentioned was in all probability meant to place stress on Israel for a cease-fire deal.
The surveillance troopers who had been within the operations room on the time of the assault had been alive for almost six hours till noon, ready to be rescued, based on info gathered by Mr. Eshel and testimony given final 12 months to an informal inquiry that he initiated with different bereaved households and survivors of the assault.
In a battle across the operations room, 4 fight troopers fought to their deaths, the inquiry discovered. The assailants then set the operations room ablaze. Seven extra fight troopers and solely one of many lookouts managed to search out their approach by means of the thick smoke and escape by means of a small lavatory window. Sergeant Eshel and the others on obligation died within the inferno.
Just one different lookout escaped alive from the shelter. In all, greater than 50 troopers had been killed within the Nahal Ozbase, 15 of them lookouts.
Sergeant Eshel was categorized as lacking for 34 days till the navy confirmed her dying, primarily based on DNA. However, Mr. Eshel mentioned, “There are numerous open questions.”
Israel’s navy chief, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, announced his resignation this previous week and mentioned that earlier than he departs, in March, the navy would finalize the collection of long-awaited inside inquiries into its failure on Oct. 7. The outcomes of the interior inquiries can be made out there to the general public, the navy says.
Mr. Eshel believes his daughter knew she wouldn’t make it out alive. The oldest of three siblings, she all the time signed off her messages with 5 pink coronary heart emojis, one for every member of the household, he mentioned. In her final message to her mom from the operations room, at 9:27 a.m., she mentioned to not fear and signed off with solely 4 hearts.
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