As IDF releases audio of lookout troops on Oct. 7, families complain footage edited
After long legal struggle, relatives get recordings of loved ones hours before they were killed or abducted from Nahal Oz base; but some of the soldiers aren’t heard in them
After a protracted legal struggle, the Israel Defense Forces on Monday evening passed on communication recordings of surveillance soldiers killed or abducted in Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught to the soldiers’ parents, although many of the relatives complained that the recordings were partial, and that some of the servicewomen weren’t heard in them at all.
The radio recordings from the Nahal Oz base — sent to the bereaved families after the High Court of Justice ordered their release following more than a year of proceedings — were from Friday, October 6, the last day before the onslaught, and from the early morning of October 7.
Relatives complained that the documentation ended at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, meaning that those who went on shift after that time weren’t heard at all. They said it also included “a few seconds” from 4:47 a.m. on October 7, less than two hours before the unprecedented Hamas assault began.
During the onslaught, in which a total of some 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage, terrorists stormed the Nahal Oz base, situated next to Kibbutz Nahal Oz.
Fifteen surveillance soldiers were killed and seven were taken hostage to Gaza, one of whom was rescued and another of whom was recovered dead after she was murdered in captivity. The other five — Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Agam Berger, Naama Levy and Daniella Gilboa — are still hostages.
For months before Hamas’s onslaught, surveillance soldiers reported signs of activity along the restive Gaza border, situated a kilometer from them. The soldiers’ reports included information on Hamas operatives conducting training sessions multiple times a day, digging holes and placing explosives along the border.
While surveillance soldiers provide real-time intelligence information to soldiers in the field, earning them the name “the eyes of the army,” members of the all-female force believe that they were not taken seriously, partly due to their gender. According to the accounts of the soldiers, no action was taken by the more senior officers who received the reports, and the information was disregarded as unimportant by intelligence officials.
Some of the families said Monday night and Tuesday morning that the recordings had provided them with closure.
“We heard Shay’s voice. We heard her reporting on her last shift — on the morning of Friday, October 6,” said the family of Sgt. Shay Ashram.
“We heard her laughing, after the last time we spoke to her we heard her crying and scared on the morning of October 7,” the family said. “It’s a shame that we only got to hear her voice after a struggle of over a year, including a petition to the High Court.”
The family added a call to free the remaining 100 hostages held by terrorists in Gaza, including the five captive surveillance soldiers.
But others reported bitter disappointment.
Yigal Cohen, father of slain soldier Hadar Cohen, told the Ynet news site: “We received recordings from the morning of October 6 until that evening, and that’s it. Hadar was on shift from 8 p.m. until midnight” — meaning her entire shift wasn’t included in the documentation.
“We had waited for so long to hear her, and they didn’t update us beforehand what we were going to hear and that she isn’t in them,” he added. “It’s very strange, a serious disappointment. It’s unreal. It can’t be that on such a front, before such an attack, they can’t be heard. We feel like things are being concealed from us.”
Barak Landman, father of Adi Landman, told Ynet that what the families received was an “embarrassment.”
A lawyer representing the families in the High Court petition, Gilad Bar-Tal, said the disappointment was “huge and unbearable” and accused the military of “continuing its demeaning behavior toward the families of the surveillance soldiers.”
He vowed to continue the legal fight to receive the full documentation, including from the late evening and overnight, and argued that the partial recordings did not resolve the standing petition.
In response, the IDF said Tuesday morning that it was performing another check to see if more portions of the audio could be sent.
“The IDF is committed to the bereaved families and does not hide information from them,” the army said in a statement. “As explained to the families when the recordings were handed over, the clips that were transferred were recordings in which only their loved ones can be heard.”
According to a military source, the omitted sections include conversations that also include combat soldiers. “Due to privacy concerns, the families of the surveillance troops could not be given these sections,” the source said in a statement sent to military reporters on condition of anonymity.
“The IDF… regrets any mental anguish it has caused [the families], and had no intention of adding to their suffering,” the army added.
The Times of Israel Community.