IDF commander who oversaw Oct. 7 battle in Be’eri apologizes to bereaved residents
In ‘complex’ meeting at home where 13 hostages were killed, Barak Hiram confronted by calls to resign from some victims’ family members
The families of victims killed on Kibbutz Be’eri during the October 7 Hamas terror assault met with the commander of the Israel Defense Forces’ 99th Division, Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram, on Tuesday for the first time since the military published the results of its probe into the events that unfolded inside the tight-knit community on the day of the massacre.
The meeting, described by those who attended as tense and difficult, took place inside the partially destroyed home of slain resident Pessi Cohen. Cohen’s home was shelled by IDF tanks on October 7, under Hiram’s orders, as the IDF battled Hamas terrorists who had taken 15 hostages and barricaded themselves inside.
One hostage had been able to leave the house prior to the shelling and the ensuing gun battle, but once the smoke cleared, 13 of the 14 hostages were dead. The IDF probe stated that many of the hostages were apparently killed by gunfire, and found that Hiram’s decision to order the tank shelling was a “professional and reasonable” one.
Nevertheless, the relatives of civilians killed inside Cohen’s home, as well as other members of the kibbutz, have expressed anger over decisions taken by the chief of the 99th Division and accused him of failing the roughly 100 civilians killed inside the community’s gates on October 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel.
In a partial recording of his statements at the meeting broadcast on Channel 12 news, Hiram said he took full responsibility for his actions at Be’eri, and noted that the terrorists “had come to murder everybody on the kibbutz.”
“It was hell even to get here [to Be’eri],” he said. “The number of vehicles, the number of bodies on the way — this did not look like [the work of] people who came to leave anybody alive.”
He also said he was “very sorry, from the bottom of my heart, if any of my behavior in the 10 months [since October 7] personally hurt anybody,” in reference to interviews he had given since. “Nothing I said was intended, heaven forbid, to do harm or indicate contempt.”
“It was a complex meeting for several reasons,” Sharon Cohen, daughter-in-law of Pessi, said in a statement released to the press after the meeting. “We heard his side, he took responsibility and said that the army had failed.”
She added that the families had confronted Hiram about what they believed to have been his improper conduct, and said the officer had “listened with an open heart.”
“He apologized for the very great loss that we all experienced inside the house,” she said, adding that she believed his apology to be sincere, and that he understood the complicated feelings of the families.
“As far as I’m concerned, he understands that the IDF failed,” she said. “He promised that he would do everything to rebuild trust.”
Speaking to Channel 12 after the meeting ended, Cohen said it had been difficult, and “brought up all the difficult feelings that take a person back to October 7, to the time we were in the shelter and all the lack of certainty about what was happening in Pessi’s house.”
Regarding Hiram’s order for the tanks to shell the home, Cohen said he had explained that the “whole point of shooting was to put pressure on the terrorists,” and that he believed it would save the lives of those inside the home.
“Barak said that all the IDF wanted to do was save lives…everything they did was to try and allow the hostages to leave the house alive, which, to our sorrow, did not end up happening,” she said.
Not all shared her view, however, and during the meeting, some of the bereaved families demanded Hiram’s resignation and speculated that he was still angling to be appointed the head of the IDF’s Gaza Division — a position he was tapped for before the war.
“I asked him, as a trust-building measure, not to resign but to understand the difficulty of being responsible for the security of citizens in an area where issues are still unresolved, and to be responsible for security in a different operational division,” Ron Shafroni said after the meeting.
“Hiram told me personally that he listened to the criticism and took it to heart,” he continued. “However, during the conversation, he insisted that precisely because he was the officer in charge in Be’eri, he was in the best position to take command of the Gaza Division.”
Shafroni’s relatives Ayala Hetzroni and her great niece and -nephew, 12-year-old twins Liel and Yannai Hetzroni, were all killed on October 7, along with the twins’ grandfather Aviya Hetzroni.
“It’s clear that Hiram wanted to listen, but he also shut down in the face of some of the harsh criticism that came up over the orders he gave,” Shafroni explained. “He backed off from things he had explicitly said in the media in the past and tried to quiet the anger toward him, as part of his desire to be appointed the next division commander despite the severe failures he admitted to during the meeting.”
“No dialogue, no matter how sincere it may be, will bring our loved ones back to us,” Shafroni said, noting the heavy losses suffered by the kibbutz, which saw the heaviest blow of any single border community during the Hamas onslaught.
The meeting with Hiram lasted two hours, during which the bereaved families were given the opportunity to ask whatever questions they had for him, and say whatever was on their mind, according to a statement from the kibbutz at the end of the session.
“I felt that Barak reached Be’eri and did everything he could do while in an impossible situation,” Shafroni said. “I think all the soldiers who came here strove to engage [the enemy] and did everything they could.
“I feel that the whole story of Pessi’s house is falling into place in my head. This story has a beginning, a middle — and for me, I feel that we are nearing the end of the story.”
Even though Hiram had answered some of her many questions, Cohen told Channel 12, plenty more were left unanswered.
“What he couldn’t answer was how we got here in the first place…how we reached a moment in which Kibbutz Be’eri was conquered, and how we have hostages in Gaza for almost 300 days,” she said, using the opportunity to call for those in power to do everything in their power to reach a hostage deal.
The meeting with Hiram allowed most of the kibbutz to walk away with a “better understanding of the complex situation that unfolded in Pessi’s home,” the kibbutz said in an additional statement on Tuesday evening, “despite the pain that will not go away.”
“Brig. Gen. Hiram was sincere and attentive, and received the embrace of most of the families, who wished him success, and made it clear that he is part of Be’eri’s rescuers and that he has the maximum ability to succeed in restoring security to the kibbutz,” it stated. “The opinions of the kibbutz members are diverse and different from each other in day-to-day matters, and even more so in matters related to the events of October 7, which affected each and every member of the kibbutz in a very complex way.”
