Bodycams on Hamas gunmen show them easily crossing border barriers en route to kibbutz
Clips show terrorists, some on motorcycles, progressing unopposed through succession of border fences, and their assault on Kerem Shalom, where 12-strong defense team fought back
A series of videos published earlier this week, obtained from the body cameras of Hamas gunmen, shows how the terror group easily broke through Israel’s Gaza border barriers during its October 7 assault on southern Israel.
In the brutal attack that started the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, some 2,500 terrorists blasted through the Israeli border fence, streamed into Israel via land, sea, and air under a barrage of thousands of rockets, and killed some 1,400 people, the vast majority of them civilians. Terrorists also took more than 200 hostages of all ages into Gaza and are holding them captive.
The assault shocked Israel, which had over the years constructed increasingly sophisticated layers of defense along the border, which included constant monitoring, underground barriers, quick response teams and more.
Beyond the fiasco that enabled the infiltration to occur, military forces in the area were woefully outnumbered in the initial hours of the onslaught, which led to a sluggish reaction to the simultaneous attacks on multiple communities, further enabling the devastation of the towns and killings of civilians within.
The intelligence and operational failures that enabled the attack are considered to be among the worst in Israel’s history, and are expected to be thoroughly investigated once the war concludes.
The clips, released by the South First Responders group on Telegram on Monday, show Hamas terrorists arriving at Israel’s security barrier near Kibbutz Kerem Shalom, some of them on motorcycles, before they blow a hole in the fence.
Watch the clips here:
After breaking through the first fence, the terrorists continue through Israel’s buffer zone until they reach an already damaged section of the second fence.
After breaching the second fence and entering Israel, the next clip shows how the terrorists blow a hole in a wall surrounding Kibbutz Kerem Shalom, on the border with the southern part of the Gaza Strip, and enter the community.
In further clips, the terrorists can be seen opening fire randomly at homes, and engaging in battles with the local security team.
At Kerem Shalom, unlike in many other communities, the civilian response team along with troops were able to kill and drive off the attackers, though not without casualties.
Media reports (Hebrew) have indicated the community’s defensive forces numbered only 12 people: eight members of the civilian response team and four soldiers.
The battles in the community lasted for hours, with two members of the response team killed along with an unconfirmed number of soldiers.
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But the defense teams managed to hold off the assailants, killing multiple gunmen while an IDF attack helicopter that arrived at the scene eliminated dozens more.
In the end, no residents of the kibbutz were killed beyond the two responders and none were abducted. One kibbutz member told Walla news: “They saved us all.”