On 7 October 2023, in the opening attacks of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, around 70 Hamas militants carried out a massacre at Be'eri, an Israeli kibbutz near the Gaza Strip. At least 130 people were killed in the attack, including women, children, and infants, claiming the lives of 10% of the farming community's residents. Dozens of homes were also burned down. This incident occurred concurrently with a series of other massacres and military engagements in multiple neighbouring Israeli communities, including Netiv haAsara, Kfar Aza, and the Rei'm music festival massacre.
Hostages were taken, leading to a stand-off with the Israel Defense Forces.
Background
Kibbutz Be'eri is a veteran-established kibbutz located in the Gaza periphery since 1946. Its members are generally on the secular left, and it includes many peace activists (including Vivian Silver, who was on the board of directors of B'Tselem, currently presumed to be taken hostage).
The kibbutz had around 1,200 residents before the attack, and was the largest village of the Eshkol Regional Council.
Attack
The Hamas force targeting Be'eri consisted of militants belonging to the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades' Nuseirat Battalion led by Abed al Rahman. On the morning of 7 October 2023, at 6:30 am, Hamas militants began firing rockets at the kibbutz. Another Palestinian militant group, the DFLP, later declared that its troops (organized as National Resistance Brigades) were also fighting the IDF in Be'eri. Around 70 militants entered the kibbutz on motorcycles and in vehicles, and killed the security personnel at the entrance. After capturing the village, they started going from house to house, shooting or capturing the residents. They also shot at buildings and set some on fire. The militants were accompanied by a camera team and journalist who documented the attack and extolled it as a Palestinian victory. Many residents tried to hide in safe rooms, but the militants blew up the safe room doors and killed those inside.
The militants took up to 50 people hostage in a dining room in Be'eri, and kidnapped others, taking them the Gaza Strip. When Israeli security forces counter-attacked, the militants holding the hostages were forced into a stand-off. Videos emerged showing the hostages being led barefoot across a street in town.
Timeline
Using collected WhatsApp messages from a mother's group in the kibbutz and CCTV footage, a rough timeline was established. Hamas arrived at the gate of the kibbutz before 6:00 am, with the militants first executing the civilians in a vehicle. By 7:10 am, the first messages on the WhatsApp group contained images of three motorbikes, each carrying two heavily armed Hamas militants leaving through the main gate. At 9:05 am, Hamas was seen dragging a corpse from the car that was destroyed at the kibbutz gate.
Tutorials on locking doors were shared on the WhatsApp group, but concerns were expressed over the shelters' inability to stop attackers. Hamas attackers went around the neighborhoods, shooting and throwing grenades, massacring the occupants of each house and setting some on fire with Molotov cocktails. WhatsApp was used to advise occupants and share safehouses, but it also turned increasingly desperate as mentions of deaths of babies and family members surfaced.
Two hours after the massacre began, twenty Israeli Air Force airmen from the elite Shaldag Unit arrived by helicopter at Kibbutz Be'eri. Five were killed and one was wounded by the militants within a very short time, many of them near "the iconic yellow gate of the kibbutz." The surviving airmen were forced to retreat and find other civilian areas with less resistance due to their now very small group. A Israeli CH-53D helicopter was destroyed in the ground by Hamas militants hours after the attack at Be'eri kibutz.
After around 12 hours, more IDF forces arrived and killed most of the militants. Some 18 hours after the stand-off began, the IDF reported the hostages had been freed. However, security forces continued to sweep the village for Hamas holdouts.
The kibbutz suffered heavy losses of life and property, leaving it devastated and shattered.
Yossi Landau, regional head of the relief organisation ZAKA, stated to Sky News that around 80% of the bodies at Be'eri and Kfar Aza showed signs of torture, and that he found "two piles of ten children each were tied to the back, burnt to death" at Be'eri.