The army’s newest report also examined battles at the nearby Shaar HaNegev and Black Arrow junctions.
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
The IDF’s latest report on the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023, focused on the fighting at Kibbutz Mefalsim and its environs and commended both local emergency squads and certain security forces for averting a disaster.
Twenty-seven minutes after the rocket sirens started sounding at 6:29, the security coordinator of the kibbutz saw the first terrorists at the entrance gate and alerted his five-man squad via WhatsApp, who rushed into battle immediately to stop them.
After an hour, about 30 terrorists managed to infiltrate the kibbutz through the main gate, enter the foreign workers’ compound, and kidnap 12 of them, bringing them by tractor to a nearby shelter.
There were two more attempts to enter the kibbutz through different routes, but the emergency squad managed to repel them successfully.
Only at 9:30, some two and a half hours after the residents of Mefalsim held off the invaders on their own, did men from Yamam, the elite police counter-terror force, arrive with units from the Shin Bet security agency. They engaged with the terrorists at the main gate and rescued the dozen foreign workers. One Shabak fighter was killed in the battle.
While several kibbutz members were injured during the fighting, which ended at 10:20, none were killed. The evacuation of the kibbutz lasted into the evening.
The report praised the kibbutz fighters’ “great determination and resourcefulness,” saying, “Their bravery is noteworthy, and it led to the stabilization of the initial defense line.”
There were two other major battle points nearby: the Shaar HaNegev and Black Arrow junctions of Route 232, which became known as the “road of death” due to the nearly 80 civilians who were shot and killed by Hamas forces lying in ambush there over the course of several hours, targeting people trying to flee terrorists behind them by driving north.
Many of the ambushes took place at a curve in the road near the Black Arrow junction.
An IDF unit that had been positioned there and saw terrorists arriving soon after 6:30 in 10 vans and five motorcycles had heavy armaments in the form of a tank and an armored personnel carrier. However, not realizing the gravity of the situation, the entire unit was ordered to head to Kibbutz Nahal Oz and Kfar Aza to fight the Hamas forces there instead.
It took until 9:45 for IDF forces to reach the area. They began fighting off the terrorists and searching for people who were hiding in the woods nearby.
At 11:20, another wave of terrorists approached the junction, but they were repelled with the aid of airstrikes by drones and helicopters.
Although the major battles were completed by early afternoon, some terrorists remained in the area for the next three days. Several IDF soldiers were killed while eliminating them.
At the Shaar HaNegev Junction, a Golani battalion was deployed and engaged the invaders soon after 7 a.m., slowing them down despite being significantly outnumbered.
An army aircraft arrived an hour later and attacked the terrorists.
The area was declared free of terrorists within half an hour once a significant Yamam force arrived at 8:17. It was bolstered by IDF forces at 8:30.
In all, more than 200 terrorists infiltrated the area in three main waves and carried out a murder, kidnapping, and looting spree over many hours.
Thirteen IDF soldiers and Shin Bet forces were killed in the fighting; 77 civilians were murdered; and 13 people were abducted by Hamas forces — only two of them alive, one of whom was murdered in captivity.
“The security forces’ fighters who fought in the area acted with great heroism and selflessness,” the investigation stated, pointing especially to the Yamam takeover of the Shaar HaNegev junction, which allowed the movement of many forces to assist in the fighting in other locations and save many lives.
It concluded, however, that the army had failed to protect Kibbutz Mefalsim and the area.
It also determined that the operations to clear the area were thorough, but a lack of control over the movement of forces at critical crossings made it difficult to conduct the battles.
The report attributed most of the failure to the fact that the IDF was not prepared for a widespread invasion, with thousands of terrorists attacking dozens of locations simultaneously. The troops had trained only for isolated and localized infiltrations and were deployed accordingly.
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