120 terrorists invaded Erez Crossing, adjacent base on Oct. 7, as troops made brave stand

On the morning of October 7, 2023, some 120 Hamas-led terrorists stormed into the Erez border checkpoint with the Gaza Strip and an adjacent military base in two waves. The troops stationed there were unable to defend the facility, and it quickly fell to the terrorists, who killed nine soldiers and abducted three others.

On Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces presented its probe into the Hamas attack on the Erez Crossing and the adjacent base, which houses the Coordination and Liaison Administration to the Gaza Strip, a unit that is part of the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. The unit is staffed by IDF soldiers.

Before the war, some 18,000 Gazans had work permits to enter Israel via the Erez Crossing. The checkpoint was largely destroyed by the Hamas terror group during its October 7 onslaught, and all work permits have been revoked.

The Erez attack probe was part of the IDF’s detailed investigations of some 40 battles that took place that day. The investigation highlighted colossal failures in the military’s ability to defend a military site near a border, as well as the heroism of some troops who fought that day, and the successful use of the Israeli Air Force to prevent many more terrorists from invading the base.

The Erez Crossing and Gaza liaison base were among many IDF facilities that were attacked in Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, during which some 5,600 terrorists stormed across the border, massacred some 1,200 people, and took 251 hostages to Gaza. Most victims were civilians.

The probe, carried out by Col. Gidi Kfir-El, covered all aspects of the fighting in the checkpoint and base that day.

Kfir-El and his team spent hundreds of hours investigating the battle at the Erez Crossing and Gaza liaison base, reviewing what the IDF said was every possible source of information — the IDF’s radio communications, surveillance cameras, the soldiers’ WhatsApp messages, footage taken by the Hamas terrorists and interrogations of captured terrorists. Kfir-El also interviewed soldiers who survived the attack and made visits to the scene.

The probe was aimed at drawing specific operational conclusions for the military. It did not examine the wider picture of the military’s perception of Gaza and Hamas in recent years, which was covered in separate, larger investigations into the IDF’s intelligence and defenses.

Kfir-El’s team stated that “the IDF did not succeed in its mission to protect the base.” However, the investigators said that “the engagement by the troops in the first hour aided in saving many lives and preventing more extensive harm.”

“Additionally, Air Force strikes neutralized the infiltration of dozens more terrorists,” the team added.

Nine soldiers were killed at the Gaza liaison base and three were abducted alive: Ron Sherman, Nik Beizer and Tamir Nimrodi. The bodies of Sherman and Beizer were recovered by the military from north Gaza after they were killed in captivity as a result of an Israeli strike. Nimrodi remains held in the Strip.

The investigation found that some 20 terrorists from Hamas’s elite Nukhba force invaded the base first, carrying out killings, abductions, looting and “other cruel crimes.” Later in the day, another 100 terrorists, some of whom were members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and others who were unaffiliated, infiltrated the area and carried out additional looting.

The probe determined that the number of troops deployed to the area before the onslaught would not have been enough to defend the site even in a smaller scenario than what ultimately played out on October 7, 2023.

The investigation also found that if the troops had been prepared differently, they likely could have prevented the terrorists from invading the Gaza liaison base.

The base was also being used to house a company of backup troops, meaning a force that was not assigned to defend any specific part of the border or any town, but rather respond in the event of an incident. The probe found that having those troops stationed there prevented further harm to the base, but they still failed to defend the facility.

The probe said that the base’s main entrance was quickly captured by the terrorists, allowing many of them to quickly reach the center of the facility. And yet, the soldiers had nearly half an hour to prepare for the invasion, from the moment they spotted the first terrorists at the adjacent Erez Crossing at 6:35 a.m. to the first infiltration shortly before 7 a.m. The investigation stated that this time was not used correctly by the troops to prepare for an invasion of the base.

The investigators also pointed to a lack of command and control, leading many soldiers to act on their own accord amid the fighting.

Similar to the Nahal Oz base, the investigation also noted that the Gaza liaison base, despite its proximity to the Strip, does not serve as a military post that can be defended. The large base, which serves several military units and a Defense Ministry unit, was a “weak spot” in terms of being able to defend it from a ground-based attack, the investigators found.

Of the 120 terrorists who invaded the area, a total of nine were killed by troops inside the base, while dozens more were killed in the Erez Crossing area by airstrikes, according to the probe.

The timeline of the attack

Ahead of the October 7 onslaught, the 7th Armored Brigade’s 77th Battalion was responsible for defending the north Gaza border area, including the Erez Crossing and Gaza liaison base. The battalion’s backup company was stationed at the liaison base. The crossing itself was manned by five Defense Ministry security guards, as it was a weekend and no pedestrian traffic to and from Gaza was expected.

At 5:30 a.m. on October 7, Israeli troops stationed in the area took their positions along the Gaza border in a shift change. The Hamas onslaught began an hour later.

At 6:29 a.m., Hamas launched an initial barrage of over 1,000 rockets, mostly aimed at Israeli military bases and posts near the Gaza border. Troops stationed at the base headed for bomb shelters.

At 6:32 a.m., soldiers monitoring surveillance cameras identified a group of terrorists on pickup trucks heading from Gaza toward the Erez Crossing.

Between 6:32 and 6:42 a.m., the Hamas terrorists breached Israel’s border barrier with Gaza in several locations, infiltrated into Israel, and headed toward the Erez Crossing, the Gaza liaison base and the nearby community of Erez.

At 6:42 a.m., the first Hamas terrorists infiltrated the Erez Crossing, capturing the vehicle lane and pedestrian terminal. Some of the terrorists climbed onto the roof of the crossing in an attempt to carry out sniper fire from there on the Gaza liaison base.

Some of the backup troops stationed in the base tried to reach the Erez Crossing and meet up with the Defense Ministry security guards, though they were unable to due to the terrorists’ gunfire. The troops turned around and began to head for the nearby community of Netiv Haasara, where an infiltration was reported.

At 6:50 a.m., a commander of one of the backup company’s platoons called his troops to return to the base and prepare for an attack by the terrorists there. He also instructed a team led by a sergeant to defend the base with him.

At 6:52 a.m., the five Defense Ministry security guards spotted dozens of terrorists approaching them from the pedestrian terminal. The guards fled to the second floor of the terminal and locked themselves in a room there.

At 6:54 a.m., a group of terrorists reached the southeast side of the base, and planted a bomb on its perimeter wall, in an attempt to bring it down. The explosion did not succeed in destroying the wall.

At the same time, the operations sergeant on duty that morning at the base spotted the terrorists advancing toward a position outside the base used by a team of soldiers operating surveillance balloons. She called on the soldiers to head into the base.

Several minutes later, the first terrorists managed to breach the base from its back entrance in the south of the facility. Troops were already stationed in the area and exchanged fire with the terrorists.

Another team headed for the eastern side of the base to prevent an infiltration via the facility’s main entrance. Meanwhile, one of the troops spotted a terrorist on the roof of the Gaza Crossing terminal and opened fire, killing him.

At 7 a.m., three of the balloon operators ran toward the base to try and seek shelter, only to find that the bomb-safe rooms there were locked. (They had previously been converted into offices and no longer served as bomb shelters.) Their commander joined them shortly after, as they hid in a concrete pipe.

Meanwhile, the terrorists had managed to breach the main entrance to the base. A commander on duty that morning opened fire, delaying the terrorists from entering the base by several minutes. After running out of ammunition, at 7:04 a.m., the commander headed to the base’s war room, where he locked himself and others up.

The terrorists, meanwhile, entered the base from the main entrance and split up, heading for different areas of the base.

One terrorist hurled a grenade toward the base’s dining hall, close to where the balloon operators were hiding. As a result of the explosion, the soldiers ran out of the concrete pipe and headed for the war room.  The terrorists opened fire on them, killing two: Staff Sgt. Or Mizrahi and Staff Sgt. Max Rabinov.

The terrorists advanced into the barracks of the Gaza liaison base, where they murdered three other soldiers and abducted three others: Sherman, Beizer and Nimrodi.

At 7:22 a.m., an Israeli Air Force drone carried out its first strike in the Erez Crossing area. Simultaneously, troops were exchanging fire with the Hamas terrorists around a bomb shelter in the parking lot of the base. One soldier was killed and another was wounded during the exchange, and the troops asked for backup.

Moments later, three troops led by the sergeant tried to join up with the other soldiers. As the four arrived, the terrorists opened fire, killing the sergeant. The commander of a platoon then engaged the terrorists, killing two.

At 7:34 a.m., the fighting continued, with the terrorists firing several RPGs at the forces, killing one soldier.

In an attempt to gather more forces, the platoon commander led his troops further back into the base. At 7:38 a.m., the team entered the female officers’ barracks and fought from there against the terrorists who breached the base. One soldier was killed fighting there, and the troops killed two Hamas terrorists.

At 8:22 a.m., several IAF drone strikes were carried out on Hamas vehicles in the area. Some were hit, while others turned around and headed back to Gaza. The investigation found that these strikes prevented another wave of terrorists from invading the base.

By 8:30 a.m., the fighting at the base had concluded, with the Hamas terrorists either killed or having returned to the Strip. Most of the soldiers began to exit the base at this stage.

Between 9 a.m. and 9:30 a.m., the platoon commander instructed troops who were stationed next to the base’s kitchenette to remain inside a bomb shelter because the IAF was set to carry out several strikes in the area.

At 9:30 a.m., the company commander reached the kitchenette area and saw that no troops were there, and mistakenly thought that there was nobody left in the base to rescue, when in fact several were hiding inside the bomb shelter.

At 10:30 a.m., around 100 terrorists from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other unaffiliated Palestinians infiltrated the base and carried out looting and arson.

The company commander was hiding with another soldier, and as he heard the terrorists, he continued to believe that there were no more soldiers on the base. At 1:30 p.m., the commander left the base and headed for Netiv Haasara with the second soldier, escaping the second wave of terrorists.

At 3 p.m., members of the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit reached the base and began to search it. The troops did not encounter any living terrorists during their searches, and they found the soldiers who were hiding in the bomb shelter.

At 3:45 p.m., members of the Paratroopers Brigade’s reconnaissance unit headed for the Erez Crossing pedestrian terminal, where they rescued the five Defense Ministry security guards who were hiding in a server room. The paratroopers did not encounter any terrorists amid the searches.

By 7 p.m., the Yahalom soldiers brought all the Gaza liaison office soldiers to the Yad Mordechai Junction, and those wounded were taken to hospitals. By 11 p.m., the command over the base was returned to the regional unit.