IDF to give parents recordings of surveillance troops murdered at army base on Oct. 7
Military approves measure after families petitioned High Court for documentation from Nahal Oz; attorney praises army for sparing families from litigation against commanders
The military announced Thursday that it will pass on communication recordings and footage of surveillance soldiers murdered in Hamas’s October 7 massacre to their parents, who had petitioned the High Court of Justice for the documentation.
The Israel Defense Forces said the recordings from the Nahal Oz army base will stretch “from the day preceding the massacre and/or the last shift of each of the female soldiers regardless of the time of the shift,” as the parents requested in their petition.
The measure was approved by IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, the military said.
The decision caps off a nearly year-long struggle by the bereaved families to receive the documentation of their daughters’ final moments before their murder at the hands of the Hamas terrorists.
Attorney Gilad Yitzhak Bar-Tal, who represented the families, lamented that “no recording will bring the female surveillance soldiers back to their parents” but praised the army for sparing the bereaved families from litigation against commanders.
So far, a raw recording taken from the communication equipment used by slain soldier Roni Eshel on October 7 was aired by Channel 12 in March, allowing a glimpse into the last hours of the surveillance troops, who remained at their stations up until the end.
For weeks before Hamas’s onslaught — when thousands of terrorists streamed over the border, killing some 1,200 people and kidnapping 251 more — surveillance soldiers reported signs of activity along the restive Gaza border, situated a kilometer from them.
While the 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 weren’t taken seriously due to their gender — an oversight that they say led to the deaths of 15 of their number at their base in Kibbutz Nahal Oz on October 7.
Hamas killed a total of 52 soldiers at the base and kidnapped 10 to Gaza.
‘The truth is not being told’
Earlier on Thursday, an official from the IDF’s Southern Command testified anonymously before an independent civilian commission of inquiry into October 7, accusing the military of withholding the truth of what happened during Hamas’s attack — particularly in regard to the surveillance soldiers — and claiming that the army’s internal investigation into its response was marked by conflicts of interest.
“I can unhesitatingly say that the truth is not being told to the families of the surveillance soldiers,” the official asserted.
Almost every investigation conducted by the IDF ground forces “is light years distant from the truth” and is “motivated by a strategy of protecting each other,” they continued.
One colonel placed in charge of a probe was slated to be promoted by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, “so how can he investigate the commanders’ performance,” the official said, alleging “a clear conflict of interest.”
The official further stated that when they asked why they had not been questioned in another probe, they were told that “we had to protect the general, and if we had asked you questions we would not have been able to protect the general and the command.”
Testifying before the commission last week, several former surveillance soldiers, as well as the parents of their fallen comrades, stated that they had had to contend with repeated technical glitches in their monitoring equipment and were never trained on how to respond should their bases be overrun.
The families of the surveillance troops have long demanded a probe into the IDF’s apparent disregard for their children’s warnings ahead of October 7.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
