A special probe into the October 7 2023, Hamas raid inside Israel has revealed that more than 400 fighters entered the country and left without being noticed by security.
Hamas fighters easily entered Israel and killed 47 Israelis and kidnapped 76. All IDF commanders killed in the first wave, all but six houses damaged.
The IDF probe concluded that, in addition to the failure that no top military officials realized that the slaughter at Nir Oz was even worse than in many other places that had more IDF support, additional reasons it was utterly abandoned included its geographic distance from Israel’s center and its perception as smaller than some other Gaza border villages.
The probe notes that IDF forces came to Be’eri much earlier, but Beeri is further north, parallel to central Gaza, whereas Nir Oz is further south parallel to Khan Yunis in Gaza.
Also, Beeri had a pre-war population of around 1,300, whereas Nir Oz had only 400.
A large part of the failed defense of Nir Oz was that IDF Brigade Commander Col. Assaf Hamami was killed before 7:00 a.m.
His deputy and a number of other company and platoon commanders were also killed relatively soon after the invasion started, leading to a complete and utter breakdown in command, control, and coordination of those IDF forces who were in the area.
Around 34 Golani brigade troops holed up inside the kibbutz cafeteria building which made them an easy target and highly ineffective.
Several were killed, and 17 were wounded, with IDF sources saying that they basically took themselves out of the broader battle and became a unit that just needed rescuing instead of being able to mount a real defense.
Chronologically, the first invasion wave started just before 6:45 a.m. with six penetrations out of what would eventually be around 15 penetrations nearby, after Hamas fired around 450 rockets at the Nir Oz area, mainly to kill or disable nearby IDF forces, sensors, and communications.
By 6:48 a.m., there were already altercations, and a minute later, forces at an IDF lookout post were killed by a Hamas sharpshooter.