The IDF probe into its failure to protect Nirim in the southern part of the Gaza Corridor from Hamas on October 7, 2023, was issued on Friday.
Around 150 Hamas terrorists, in three waves, invaded Nirim and the surrounding areas, murdering five civilians and taking hostage five deceased residents. In battles in and around Nirim, Hamas invaders killed 10 soldiers and took another eight soldiers hostage.
Prior to the war, it had a population of just over 400, and it is located close to Nir Oz, which was also utterly abandoned by the IDF until the early afternoon of October 7, when it was mostly too late to confront Hamas invaders, who had mostly returned to Gaza.
Residents did acknowledge to The Jerusalem Post that there are many more IDF positions nearby now and that Nirim's "White House" - a small nearby outpost - now has four times as many forces as it did on October 7, including more tanks.
While aspects of the report, especially where the IDF admitted its complete across-the-board failure to defend the residents, were appreciated by some of the Nirim residents, they still feel abandoned now.
Nirim resident and Channel 12 reporter Shai Levy told the Post during a recent visit to the village, "The IDF deserted us on October 7. Many residents were slaughtered before any real help came. My family and I only survived by keeping the invaders out of our safe room."
"While security is better now than before October 7, 18 months after October 7, the IDF still has an emergency order preventing most residents from returning, unless they are part of the local security squad like me," stated Levy.
Further, Levy added, "We hope we can restart schools here in September, but the IDF and government still have not made clear promises, and at some point, more residents may decide not to come back."
In addition, residents said that there was almost constant military noise from rockets, to warning sirens, to Israeli drones.
Nightmarish invasion
Mostly, the feel of the village during the Post's visit was an area that was only starting to recover from the nightmarish invasion, even as much of the rest of the country returned to a version of normalcy long ago.
Due to the IDF's orders limiting residents from returning, there are still many heavily damaged houses, with some repairs that the Post witnessed, just beginning.
Nirim is across from Khan Yunis, and though residents said there were more forces than before, multiple parts of the fence appeared to have zero IDF soldiers defending them, despite being only some hundreds of meters from Nirim.
The current hope would be that the new soldiers in Gaza and near Nirim would be enough to protect the village going forward, even though parts of the border fence itself are unmanned.