Civil defense team stopped major Hamas invasion at Alumim, but dozens were murdered outside

On the morning of October 7, 2023, during the Hamas-led terror onslaught on Israel, some 100 terrorists reached the Gaza border community of Kibbutz Alumim, where they murdered nearly two dozen foreign agricultural workers and abducted others. Outside the kibbutz, the terrorists also murdered many partygoers who had fled a nearby music festival.

The community’s local security team, along with other security forces, managed to fight off the terrorists, killing and capturing many of them, thus largely preventing a widescale infiltration of the kibbutz.

On Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces presented its probe into the battle at the kibbutz — the latest in its detailed investigations of some 40 battles that took place during Hamas’s October 7 attack, when some 5,600 terrorists stormed across the border, massacred some 1,200 people, and took 251 hostages to Gaza.

The probe highlighted the heroism of Alumim’s civil defense squad — who fought for over eight hours — and other Israeli forces that participated in the fighting.

Still, it concluded that the IDF “failed in its mission to protect” Alumim and the surrounding area, largely because the military had never prepared for such an event: an Israeli community being attacked by numerous terrorists during a widescale assault on numerous other towns and army bases simultaneously by thousands of terrorists.

In all, 57 civilians and five members of the security forces were killed in and around Alumim that day. Five hostages were taken by the terrorists.

According to the probe, 22 agricultural students and workers from Thailand and Nepal were murdered by the terrorists inside Alumim, and another two foreign nationals were abducted to Gaza.

An Israeli civilian was mistakenly killed by members of the kibbutz’s local security team, and an unidentified Thai man was mistakenly killed by soldiers, during the onslaught. Both cases were described by the probe as incidents of mistaken identity, in the throes of the chaos of the attack.

Nearly three dozen more civilians were murdered by the terrorists outside the kibbutz, mostly at Alumim Junction. Most of those people were partygoers fleeing the Nova music festival near Re’im, south of Alumim. Three others were abducted from the area outside Alumim.

Four soldiers and a police officer — whose body was abducted to Gaza — were killed during the fighting.

The dead Israeli soldiers included reservist brothers Master Sgt. (res.) Noam Slotki and Sgt. First Class Yishay Slotki, who rushed from Beersheba to defend the kibbutz despite not being called up for duty that morning; Chief Warrant Officer Ido “Crido” Rosenthal, a member of the Israeli Air Force’s elite Shaldag unit; and Cpt. Etai Cohen, an officer in the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit.

Nepalese agricultural student Bipin Joshi, and the body of police officer Sgt. First Class Ran Gvili, remain captive in the Strip. The other hostage taken from the kibbutz, Thai national Phonsawan Pinakalo, was released by Hamas in November 2023. One of the other two hostages taken from outside the kibbutz has since been freed by Hamas, while the second was recovered dead by the IDF in Gaza.

The probe into events at Alumim, led by Col. Ido Saad — chief of operations at the IDF Depth Corps — covered all aspects of the fighting in the kibbutz and surrounding area on October 7.

Saad and his team spent hundreds of hours investigating the onslaught and battle at Alumim. The IDF said the investigators reviewed every possible source of information — footage taken by terrorists with body-mounted cameras, residents’ WhatsApp messages, surveillance videos, and interviews with survivors and those who fought to defend the kibbutz — and made visits to the scene.

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

The army is also not looking at policies set by the political leadership. That way, it has avoided conflict with government leaders who have insisted such investigations must wait until after the war against Hamas ends.

The investigation team stated that “the IDF failed to defend the residents of Kibbutz Alumim and the civilians in the area.”

Saad’s team found that from the beginning of the attack and until around 1:30 p.m., the defense was led by the local security team and some 17 different Israeli units whose members randomly found themselves fighting there, without any clear direction. The troops had been heading south, mainly to Kibbutz Be’eri, when they got caught up fighting in and around Alumim.

“Their action and resourcefulness was what stopped the enemy from expanding its attack to other areas of the kibbutz. Members of the civil defense team continued to fight even after the arrival of IDF troops, guided them, and fought alongside them with exceptional heroism,” the team stated.

The probe also found that the IDF’s chain of command had collapsed in the area; that the military struggled to construct an accurate picture of what was happening in the area; and that there was little coordination between the forces in the area.

A major turning point in the onslaught at Alumim, according to the investigation, was the organized arrival of the Paratroopers Brigade’s 890th Battalion. The troops eliminated a large number of the terrorists outside Alumim and later managed to restore control over the kibbutz.

Of the 100 terrorists who attacked the Alumim area, some 40 were ultimately killed by Israeli forces in the kibbutz and adjacent areas. Another 10 were captured alive by the IDF.

The timeline of the attack

At 5:30 a.m. on October 7, Israeli troops of the Golani Brigade’s 13th Battalion serving in the area between Be’eri and Mefalsim — Alumim is located between the two — took their stations along the Gaza border in a shift change. The Hamas assault began an hour later.

During an initial barrage of around 1,000 rockets — which began at 6:29 a.m. — largely aimed at Israeli military posts, Hamas terrorists broke through 114 locations along Israel’s border barrier. Many of the breaches were in the northern Gaza border area — across from Alumim. Through them, hundreds of terrorists streamed into Israel in pickup trucks, on motorbikes, and on foot.

According to the investigation, 125 Hamas terrorists had received instructions that morning to reach Alumim and an adjacent IDF post. In reality, the terrorists never reached the military post, and not all of them reached the community.

At 7:01 a.m., 10 terrorists on five motorbikes infiltrated Alumim through a back entrance, and several minutes later reached the kibbutz’s main entrance, located adjacent to the Route 232 highway.

On the way, as they drove through the kibbutz, the terrorists opened fire on several Nepalese students at the foreign workers’ residences, located in the kibbutz’s industrial area, outside the main residential area.

As the terrorists reached the entrance of the kibbutz and the nearby Alumim Junction at 7:14 a.m., they massacred more than 20 partygoers who had fled there from the Nova festival. Eight of them were killed by the terrorists inside a bomb shelter just outside the community.

A police officer who reached the area fought back against the terrorists, wounding their commander. At the same time, Golani soldiers arrived at the area and exchanged fire with the same group of terrorists, halting the attack.

At 7:19 a.m., the group of terrorists withdrew, evacuating their wounded commander, and heading back through the kibbutz and out the back entrance.

At this stage, the community’s 16-strong civil defense squad was unaware that terrorists had infiltrated the kibbutz, and only began to gather their gear at around 7:24 a.m., after the first terrorists left.

Local security rushed to the foreign workers’ residences after receiving reports of gunfire there, and a short while later to the main entrance, where they found the aftermath of the killings.

Among those who survived the massacre at the bomb shelter outside Alumim were Ofek Atun and his girlfriend Tamar, who had fled the Nova festival. The pair, following the attack, entered the kibbutz at 7:23 a.m. and broke into the home of an elderly couple, who had locked themselves in their bomb shelter.

At 7:30 a.m., the local security team was alerted by the elderly couple that terrorists — later revealed to be the two partygoers — had entered their home.

The local security team surrounded the home, managing to evacuate the elderly couple through the window to the bomb shelter before two members entered the house. Ofek tried to attack one of the security officers from behind, thinking he was a terrorist. The officer returned fire, killing him, also thinking he was a terrorist.

A second figure — Tamar — was then spotted trying to come out of the house, and the head of the security team fired a single shot, hitting her. She was wounded in the incident, and taken to a hospital.

At 8:40 a.m., the local security team identified a group of 10 terrorists heading for Alumim from the direction of Kibbutz Be’eri, further south on Route 232. Two members of the team and an off-duty IDF battalion commander rushed to the entrance and opened fire on the terrorists, killing three of them. The terrorists then withdrew back toward Be’eri.

At 9:20 a.m., another group of around 15 Hamas terrorists infiltrated Alumim through the kibbutz’s back entrance, reaching a recreational area known as Gan Hadar, which includes a basketball court and a swimming pool. A major battle erupted between the local security team and the terrorists at Gan Hadar, preventing the terrorists from advancing further into the kibbutz. Four civil defense officers were wounded in the exchange.

During the battle, some of the terrorists flanked the Gan Hadar area, heading for the foreign workers’ residences, where they gathered up Thai and Nepalese agricultural students and workers, murdering 22 of them and abducting two others.

At 9:30 a.m., another group of some 40 terrorists of Hamas’s elite Nukhba force on pickup trucks reached Route 232 and stopped outside Alumim’s main entrance.

Other troops who had reached the area earlier, along with some members of the civil defense team, exchanged fire with those terrorists, preventing them from entering Alumim. Many of those terrorists were eliminated by the troops.

Among those hit by gunfire from the terrorists was Sgt. First Class Ran Gvili, the police officer whose body was later abducted.

At 9:45 a.m., Yishay and Noam Slotkin, brothers, who headed from Beersheba of their own accord, reached Route 232, where they came under fire by Hamas terrorists outside Alumim. The two returned fire with their handguns before they were killed.

At around 10:45 a.m., another group of some 15 Hamas terrorists infiltrated the kibbutz from the back entrance, heading for the industrial and agricultural area in the south of Alumim. The terrorists set fire to the kibbutz’s barns and packing center.

At 11:40 a.m., soldiers of the Paratroopers Brigade’s 890th Battalion were airlifted to the Alumim area by helicopters. After disembarking, the troops exchanged fire with terrorists outside Alumim, killing many of them. Three soldiers were wounded in the exchange.

Shortly after, members of the Israeli Air Force’s elite Shaldag unit, who were trying to head to Be’eri, came under fire at Alumim. During the fighting, Shaldag Chief Warrant Officer Ido Rosenthal was killed.

One of the companies of the 890th Battalion joined forces with the Shaldag officers and together they killed several more terrorists at Alumim.

At around 1 p.m., members of the Yahalom combat engineering unit received reports from the local security team in Alumim that another group of terrorists had infiltrated the community. The troops rushed to the back entrance and eliminated the terrorists. Yahalom officer Cpt. Etai Cohen was killed in the fighting.

Over the following hours, the troops carried out searches in the kibbutz, escorting residents out, treating those wounded in the fighting, and clearing bodies.

In the evening hours, an apparent Thai national, who the investigation team believes came from the nearby community of Shuva, tried to climb over Alumim’s perimeter fence. Believing him to be a terrorist, the Yahalom soldiers opened fire, killing him.

Israeli authorities to this day do not know his identity, despite many efforts to investigate the matter.