Security officers from the southern border village of Shlomit rushed to assist the nearby Moshav Pri Gan as 10 Hamas terrorists on five motorcycles infiltrated the area from the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023.
Pri Gan’s civil defense squad, which comprised just two members that morning, was ineffective in responding to the Hamas attack, according to an Israel Defense Forces probe published Thursday.
Three local security officers from Shlomit — a small village about 10 kilometers away — and a police officer were killed in the fighting. No bodies of terrorists were found in the area; the probe said one terrorist was wounded in the fighting, but fled with the others back to Gaza.
The investigation found that “the security forces succeeded in repelling all the terrorists and causing their retreat back to the Gaza Strip.”
“The courageous fighting and camaraderie demonstrated by the civil defense squad members of the village of Shlomit and other security forces who fought in the area are what repelled the terrorists and saved the moshav,” the probe stated.
However, it also noted that IDF troops in the area failed to engage the terrorists, and they had been expected to “respond more swiftly to join the fighting in the moshav.”
Similar to other investigations, the probe concluded that the IDF “failed in its mission to defend Moshav Pri Gan,” mainly because the military never prepared for such an event: an Israeli community being attacked by terrorists, as well as a widespread attack on numerous towns and army bases simultaneously by thousands of terrorists.
The findings published Wednesday are the latest in a series of detailed investigations into some 40 battles and massacres that took place during Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, when about 5,600 terrorists stormed across the border, killed some 1,200 people, and took 251 hostages into Gaza, where dozens remain captive.
The probe, carried out by Brig. Gen. Itamar Ben-Haim — the commander of the 80th Edom Regional Division — covered all aspects of the fighting in Pri Gan and the surrounding area. The IDF said the investigators made visits to the scene and reviewed every possible source of information.
The Pri Gan probe was aimed at drawing specific operational conclusions for the military. It did not examine the wider picture of the military’s perception of Gaza and Hamas in recent years, which has been covered in separate, larger investigations into the IDF’s intelligence and defenses.
As Hamas began its invasion of southern Israel, IDF troops stationed in the Pri Gan area were engaged in battling terrorists at the Sufa military base, some two kilometers from the moshav. Most of the troops were trapped in the base and unable to head out to defend the nearby towns. Meanwhile, other bases in the southern Gaza border area also came under attack, and much of the IDF’s chain of command in that region was killed.
At around 7:20 a.m., the 10 terrorists on five motorcycles entered Pri Gan and began to attack homes near the moshav’s northern entrance gate.
A team of two police officers and the security coordinator for the Hevel Shalom bloc of communities, of which Pri Gan is part, arrived at 7:34 a.m. and engaged the terrorists.
The police officer, Supt. Avi Zidon, was killed in the fighting, and one of the terrorists took his gun.
At 7:50 a.m., several security officers from the village of Shlomit set out to help defend Pri Gan after seeing reports that the moshav had been infiltrated. They did so knowing that they were leaving their own community undefended.
The Shlomit civil defense squad led the fighting against the Hamas terrorists in Pri Gan, with additional reinforcements arriving between 8:20 and 8:43 a.m. At around 9 a.m., one officer from Shlomit, Bechor Swid, was killed after encountering a cell of terrorists en route to Pri Gan.
Shortly after, Aviad Cohen and Reouven Chicheportiche, members of Shlomit’s civil defense squad, were killed fighting the terrorists inside Pri Gan.
Troops of the Nahal Brigade’s reconnaissance unit and the Caracal Battalion — the latter of which is normally deployed to the Egypt border — who had arrived in the area shortly before, initially refused to enter the moshav amid the fighting, the probe found.
The investigation stated that the soldiers “did not properly engage” the terrorists after being requested to enter the moshav by a member of the civil defense squad.
Only at 9:13 a.m. did Caracal troops enter the moshav, shortly before the terrorists retreated back to Gaza. No fighting took place as the terrorists fled.
Another Caracal unit arrived at 9:30 a.m., and the forces declared the moshav clear of terrorists after searches at 10:45 a.m. By noon, the Shlomit security officers withdrew back to their village.