The IDF on Monday published its probe into Hamas’s October 7 slaughter of 64 members of the Kfar Aza community, and its taking of 19 hostages, with findings that there was no IDF warning, that the inadequate first IDF defense line was overcome rapidly, and that there was no IDF second defense line until it was too late.
Kfar Aza was the third largest number of casualties from any single village or battle from October 7, but is considered the most severe in relative terms given that there were only 850 residents and in terms of some of testimonies of brutal murders and rape which took place there.
Over the course of a few days, Hamas invaders also killed 18 security forces, including American-Israeli soldier Yona Brief, and two from the Shin Bet and various police combat fighters, on top of the 64 Kfar Aza residents who were killed.
The harrowing details of Hamas's Kfar Aza massacre
Of the 64 Kfar Aza residents killed, 62 were killed during the battle, mostly in the first few hours, with 33 killed in the first hour alone, and two more taken hostage, who were mistakenly killed inside Gaza by Israeli forces in December 2023.
Hamas opened the invasion with a massive rocket attack, eventually adding up to around 760 rockets fired at the Kfar Aza area.
At the high point and in total, there were around 250 Gazan terrorists invading, with at the low point, Kfar Aza having only 14 local volunteer security team members opposing them.
Half of those security members were killed by the terrorists as part of the 33 killed in the first hour.
Hour by hour: How Hamas ravaged through Kfar Aza
The 250 terrorists came in multiple waves.
Around 6:45 a.m., three hand glider terror invader groups landed in Kfar Aza.
Between 6:50 a.m. and 8:00 a.m.,, two separate groups of around 40 and 30 Hamas terrorists, plus some others totaling close to 100, from the Gaza City area, especially around Daraj Tuffah and al-Furkhan, invaded.
Between 7:30 a.m. and 9:50 a.m., another wave of multiple rounds of around 50, 30, and 80 Gazans invaded, with the group of 80 not connected to a particular terror group, and some of the others connected to Islamic Jihad.
By 8:30 a.m., there were already 150 Gazans in Kfar Aza, a number which remained consistent until around 12:00 noon as some terrorists returned to Gaza, while some new ones joined the invasion.
The IDF said that the mission of the first wave of terrorists was simply to kill as many Israelis as possible.
Only during the second wave did the terrorists start to take hostages, with virtually all of the hostages taken between 10:00 a.m. and 12:00 noon and almost all from the northern neighborhood of Kfar Aza which was closest to the Gaza border.
After 12:00 noon, many of the terrorists started to return to Gaza.
But even in the late evening on October 7, there were still around 50 terrorists holding out in Kfar Aza.
Further, even on October 8 there were still a few dozen terrorists in Kfar Aza.
By October 9, there were only a small group of terrorists left, with the last three terrorists killed by 5:00 p.m. on October 10.
In total, around 150 Gazan terrorists were killed in Kfar Aza or in that area.
A small group of Israeli forces arrived around 8:30 a.m., but were too limited to make much of a difference.
By 10:30 a.m. around 30 more Israeli forces had arrived to start to form more of a resistance, but they were still outnumbered five to one.
By 11:00 a.m., reinforcements had reached 110 soldiers, but this still only almost evened the odds.
By 12:00 noon, IDF reinforcements had reached around 180, finally having a slight advantage over the invaders, but by this point 55 Kfar Aza residents had already been killed out of the 64 eventual total.
The IDF had a greater numbers advantage around 12:50 p.m. and by 2:00 p.m., the IDF took a clear numbers advantage to decisively turn the tide, reaching around 400 soldiers, much of which came from an influx of 200 Givati soldiers together.
By 5:30 p.m. the IDF had significant numbers supremacy reaching around 700 soldiers fighting against only 50 from Hamas who were becoming increasingly cornered.
At midnight, the Israeli forces reached 1,180.
During the battle of Kfar Aza, there were seven drone strikes in support of Israeli forces, six on October 7 and one on October 8, but most of them came after most of the Kfar Aza residents who were killed were already dead.
The different Israeli forces who came to fight in Kfar Aza were diverse, including three special forces units: Duvdevan, Sayeret Matkal, Maglan, as well as regular infantry of Givati and Nahal, and two separate rounds of Shin Bet combat fighters, one of whom was killed.
At different times, there were three different brigade level commanders fighting in Kfar Aza against Hamas, and there were also two brigadier generals, but none of them knew that the others were present for much of the day due to the complete breakdown of the Gaza Division headquarters with authority for the area, commanded by Brig.-Gen. Avi Rosenfeld, and the failure of the IDF high command to understand how chaotic the situation was until around 12:00 noon.
This significantly hampered efforts at combating the Gazan invaders.
One of the brigadier generals, Yisrael Shomer, lived in Kfar Aza, was on vacation without any soldiers, and did not even have a gun with him, but fought with a hand knife for some hours until he was able to recover a rifle from another fighter. Some reports say he killed around 20 terrorists, though the IDf did not provide an official count.
The other brigadier general, Dan Goldfus, came to Kfar Aza when he learned of the invasion through independent communication lines and without any orders from the IDF and without most of his forces.
Goldfus arrived at Kfar Aza around 11:00 a.m. with six Maglan trops he was able to find and put together along the way and fought there for around an hour.
However, he also fought at Beeri, the Nova festival, and other areas, eventually in the afternoon stepping back to a makeshift headquarters, realizing that he must organize Israel’s defense, in the absence of specific orders from either the high command or the IDF southern command.
He and Brig.-Gen. Barak Hiram split up certain areas for each of them to coordinate the broader defense efforts.
IDF Brig.-Gen. Itzik Cohen would also eventually enter the picture to help coordinate defense efforts.
Eventually, 87 drones, 53 helicopters, and 12 fighter jets would participate in the battle in the broader Kfar Aza area, but almost all arrived too late to save most of the residents.
The IDF probe found that a number of the invaders were supposed to have advanced further and attacked Kibbutz Saad and Sderot, but either accidentally got lost and ended up in Kfar Aza, or were blocked from advancing once Kfar Aza started putting up a fight.
According to the IDF probe, the largest cause of the disaster were the absence of any warning, given Hamas a complete strategic surprise, the complete lack of help from the Gaza Division since it was conquered as well, the over reliance on the hi-tech border fence as opposed to having larger reinforcement forces in and around Kfar Aza, the lack of knowledge of those IDF soldiers who arrived about Kfar Aza or its residents, since most came from other fronts, the absence of a properly working and accessible weapons storage area, the lack of coordination in the defense of the village, and that evacuating the residents took too long even once the IDF had superior numbers.