The Israeli Military lookouts have 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 have been stationed in a small army base a couple of half-mile from the border.
Within the first minutes of the Hamas-led daybreak assault on Oct. 7, 2023, gunmen burst by way of the fence and overran the bottom, Nahal Oz. Dozens of troopers have 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 have 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, in response to the army. Hamas stated she died within the bombing.
4 of the remaining 5, Naama Levy, Karina Ariev and Daniella Gilboa, who are actually all 20, and Liri Albag, 19, have 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 have been latest recruits who had arrived on the base lower than two days earlier than the assault. The Israeli army 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.
Kin and former lookouts stated the ladies have been on fixed alert for the potential for a cross-border raid, although they didn’t envisage something on the size of the one which occurred.
“On a regular basis, they advised us there’d be a raid,” stated Amit Yerushalmi, 22, a former lookout who served on the Nahal Ouncesbase from December 2021 till a couple of week earlier than the assault. However she stated they’d anticipated a localized occasion alongside the fence, like an try and abduct a few troopers.
“We’d joke about whose shift the raid would fall on,” Ms. Yerushalmi stated.
Within the months main as much as the assault, Ms. Yerushalmi stated, there have been rising indicators of one thing afoot. She stated the spotters noticed convoys of 20 to 30 white pickup vehicles stuffed with Hamas fighters driving alongside the border with growing frequency, stopping sometimes and peering into Israel by way of binoculars. They might additionally put up drones just a few instances a day, Ms. Yerushalmi stated.
The spotters reported the exercise, she and a number of other kin of the opposite lookouts stated, however have been advised by their superiors that their job was to be the eyes, not the brains, of the Israeli army. Their reviews, they stated, appeared to have been dismissed.
The Israeli army declined to touch upon the precise claims, however stated in an announcement that it was “reviewing the occasions of October 7 and what preceded them” with the aim of deriving classes for the continuation of the military’s operations.
When the assault got here, 1000’s of Hamas-led gunmen and marauders burst by way of the fence and overran army bases, border villages and cities, in addition to a music competition. About 1,200 individuals have been killed in Israel that day, and one other 250 have been taken as hostages into Gaza, in response to 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 have been at a special base, farther from the border.
“I nonetheless don’t know what actually occurred there,” stated 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 stated of the analysis he had performed on the destiny of the spotters. “Their abandonment and the disdain for them was so nice.”
The night earlier than the raid, the lookouts have been in a festive temper, sharing a sabbath meal collectively, singing and saying goodbye to a workforce 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 have been educated to by no means take their eyes off the screens within the operations room.
Karina Ariev’s household was not overly frightened when she was assigned to Nahal Oz, stated her cousin Anna Astmaker. “This was throughout the borders of the nation,” she stated. However Ms. Ariev advised them she didn’t really feel secure there, her cousin stated.
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 screen as exploding drones knocked out key communications and surveillance towers.
As sirens warned of incoming rocket fireplace, 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 rapidly overrun.
Within the operations room, Sergeant Eshel was using codewords to report the raid because it unfolded in a voice rising with urgency, in response to an audio recording launched by the army. Then the cameras have been destroyed, and the monitoring screens went clean.
Dozens of armed troopers who have 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 have been hiding, killing and injuring lots of them.
Ms. Ariev known as her mother and father from the shelter to say goodbye, in response to Ms. Astmaker. She advised 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 yr 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 stated was most likely meant to place strain on Israel for a cease-fire deal.
The surveillance troopers who have been within the operations room on the time of the assault have been alive for practically six hours till noon, ready to be rescued, in response to data gathered by Mr. Eshel and testimony given final yr 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 seek out their method by way of the thick smoke and escape by way of a small rest room 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 have been killed within the Nahal Ouncesbase, 15 of them lookouts.
Sergeant Eshel was labeled as lacking for 34 days till the army confirmed her dying, based mostly on DNA. However, Mr. Eshel stated, “There are lots of open questions.”
Israel’s army chief, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, announced his resignation this previous week and stated that earlier than he departs, in March, the army would finalize the collection of long-awaited inside inquiries into its failure on Oct. 7. The outcomes of the interior inquiries might be made accessible to the general public, the army 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 purple coronary heart emojis, one for every member of the household, he stated. In her final message to her mom from the operations room, at 9:27 a.m., she stated to not fear and signed off with solely 4 hearts.
