Six IDF commanders and one soldier were killed by around 120 Hamas invaders at Zikim base on October 7, 2023, the military revealed in its probe on Sunday.
Nine Hamas invaders were killed, two of which were killed after they entered the base, and the other seven nearby.
Despite the losses and the heavy criticism of the IDF probe of the poor defenses at the base, the investigation did note that the heroism there of a small number of junior commanders – many of them women – and soldiers did manage to prevent the base from being taken over the way that the Nahal Oz and Reim bases mostly were on October 7.
In addition, the IDF said that more than 100 unarmed, endangered, and not yet trained new recruit soldiers were barely saved by a mix of the resistance by this small group of armed soldiers and some luck that the two invaders that got into the base just passed by where many of the trainees were hiding.
The commanders who fell were junior ones with the rank of captain and below; the more senior base commander was stuck off base protecting his children alone under fire in Sderot, while his wife had been away for the weekend at another location.
In total, around 141 soldiers were on base during the invasion, about 70% of whom were women, given that there were mixed coed units.
Corp. Neria Aharon Nagari, 18, was killed while engaging in hand-to-hand combat with one of the two terrorists, from the full complement of invaders, that managed to penetrate the base.
Nagari, along with one other soldier, helped subdue and eventually kill that terrorist, though he was stabbed and killed during the fighting.
Among the many errors that left the base mostly defenseless and allowed the terrorists to kill so many soldiers and penetrate the base, even if in small numbers, were that no part of the Gaza Division northern brigade had taken more formal and practical responsibility for its defense.
Despite being near the front line with Gaza, the IDF had not viewed the base as being potentially in danger and had placed large numbers of trainees there who were unarmed.
Even the commanders who did put up a serious defense lacked any real combat training prior to the invasion, and simply out-performed what might have been expected with such little real combat experience.
In other words, had the base been better armed and had had more soldiers with real combat training, fewer soldiers would likely have been killed and the base should not have been breached at all.
IDF decisions moving forward
In addition, the probe said that going forward, it would not be enough for the base merely to be more armed in terms of the soldiers all having standard guns, but that they also needed regular and rocket-propelled grenades, which the invaders had.
In fact, in at least one instance, four IDF soldiers and commanders, who had put up a valiant fight against large Hamas invaders, were killed by an RPG from Hamas, a quality of weapon that they lacked.
The IDF said that Zikim and other such bases now had the improved weapons.
As part of the same probe, the IDF also showed a video of the failed defense of Zikim beach.
During that defense, two out of seven Hamas ships had penetrated Israeli navy defenses before 7:00 a.m. on October 7.
The other five invading Hamas ships were destroyed or stopped by the navy.
From the two ships, around 16 Hamas invaders got through onto land and maneuvered to different points to surprise land-based Israeli forces.
In a video that the IDF showed, seven Golani brigade soldiers can be seen retreating in the face of five incoming Hamas naval commandos without being fired on and without firing a shot in defense.
The Jerusalem Post and other Israeli media were first shown the video as a side point by the navy during its probe of October 7 in February.
At the time, the naval probe didn’t comment on what was clearly an embarrassing and improper retreat by the Golani soldiers, saying the probe was focused on the response of naval forces.
When the probe of Zikim base, which is near the beach, also showed the video of the retreat, reporters were incensed that even IDF Col. Shlomi Ben Yair had no update regarding any explanation of the soldiers’ retreat and what consequences those soldiers have faced since October 7.
Ben Yair did say that the video appeared to show that the soldiers had failed in their mission, but added that he was only authorized to fully probe the Zikim base and not the Zikim beach episode. He did note that he had spoken to some of those soldiers to get a more general picture of the battles nearby Zikim base.
This was greeted with criticism of a potential cover up by the military reporters group, especially after the naval probe had also avoided discussing the Zikim beach retreat episode in any depth.
In response to heavy criticism by the group, the IDF has notified it that a briefing on the Zikim beach episode will take place in the near future.
The base was eventually cleared of invaders. Wounded soldiers were evacuated by 10:20 a.m. and deceased ones by 11:30 a.m.