Moshav Yakhini defenders fought off October 7 onslaught with pistols, army probe finds

Eight Hamas terrorists killed 17 people during a three-and-a-half-hour rampage at Moshav Yakhini and surrounding areas on October 7, 2023, before all attackers were eliminated by Israeli police and military forces, an Israel Defence Forces investigation released on Wednesday detailed.

The probe, conducted by Lieutenant Colonel Tzafrir Har-Shoshanim, found that despite initial failures, security forces “engaged the attackers while risking their lives, fought with professionalism, bravery, and self-sacrifice, and eliminated all eight terrorists who carried out the murderous attack in the community in the early hours.”

The moshav, located south of Sderot, had a population of around 730 before the war.

The attack began at 7:05 a.m. when the terrorist squad infiltrated through the Gaza border as part of Hamas’s second wave. The gunmen, who were not elite “Nukhba” fighters and carried only personal weapons and grenades, first attempted to breach a gas station at Kibbutz Gevim where 12 civilians were sheltering, then exchanged fire with armed residents before withdrawing.

By 7:28 a.m., the terrorists began their deadly spree on Route 34, murdering eight civilians including three Nova music festival attendees who were fleeing the party: Liam Shrem, Yonatan Zeidman, and Ilai Baram. Other victims included Dr. Michael Murzakhanov, foreign workers Loreta Alacre, Zahigo Leo, and Geani Leo, and firefighter Major Roy Moshe.

The terrorists entered Yakhini at 7:39 a.m. through a pedestrian gate after capturing three Nova partygoers who had sought shelter at the community’s entrance. The attackers split into two groups, with one team attempting to abduct civilians while the other pushed deeper into the moshav. Border Police officers arrived simultaneously, thwarting the abduction attempt and allowing two women to escape by hiding in their car’s trunk.

Inside the moshav, the terrorists killed Nova attendee Ilan Avraham and residents Yizhar Hagbi and Elitzur Hagbi. Major Peleg Salem, a logistics officer and Yakhini resident, was killed at 7:54 a.m. while defending his neighborhood. The attackers also fatally wounded Yehonatan Hagbi, the security coordinator’s nephew, who died three hours later when medical forces couldn’t reach him.

One terrorist group escaped to Route 34 and set up an ambush, killing two more Nova festival survivors, Shani Amin and Adam Ilaev, at 8:11 a.m. Sergeant Amit Guetta, a Maglan soldier heading to join his unit, spotted the terrorists and was killed after disrupting their ambush position.

Officers from the elite Yamam police unit pursued the fleeing terrorists, with one officer killing three attackers near Yakhini Junction. The two surviving terrorists hijacked a security vehicle and fled toward Netivot, where police roadblocks stopped them at 8:28 a.m.

Fighting continued inside Yakhini until 10:40 a.m., when the final terrorist, hiding in a mobile home, killed Border Police Sergeant Ravit Assayag before being eliminated by Yamam officers.

The investigation revealed critical security failures. The moshav’s 13-member civilian security team had been stripped of long weapons by the IDF in 2018, leaving them with only pistols. “Our security coordinator asked the army to give the readiness squad long weapons and not to be satisfied with personal weapons – they did not respond positively,” said Zechariah Hagbi, former committee chairman whose grandson was killed.

Hagbi revealed the terrorists possessed detailed intelligence about the community. “It turns out that the terrorists had very precise data on the residences of each of the functionaries in the community,” he said, noting they went directly to the security coordinator’s home.

The IDF acknowledged that “despite the difficult starting conditions,” Yakhini benefited from an influx of forces due to its strategic location, preventing an even greater disaster. However, the investigation concluded the military “failed to defend the Yakhini area” because it never prepared for such a scenario.

Current committee chairman Shalom Yifrach criticized the lack of concrete preventive measures: “We heard a professional investigation with many conclusions – but we did not hear what practical steps were taken to prevent the next massacre.”

Wednesday’s report is the latest in a series of detailed army probes — summaries of which have been released in recent weeks — of how some 5,000 terrorists from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad managed to attack numerous Israeli communities and overrun the army’s border positions. The army’s chain of command broke amid the chaos and soldiers were outnumbered.

The investigations found that the army misunderstood Hamas’s intentions for years, and as October 7 approached, intelligence about the looming attack was misinterpreted. The military was also more focused on threats from Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The IDF probes only deal with issues of operations, intelligence and command, not decisions made by the political echelon.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resisted calls for a state commission of inquiry, saying he opposes a “politically biased” probe. Critics accuse Netanyahu of delaying the inquiry and trying to water down its mandate.

At least 1,180 people were killed, and 252 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage in Hamas’s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on October 7. Of the 55 remaining hostages, 33 are believed to be dead.