TV: Police probe of Re’im massacre shows terrorists didn’t know about party in advance

Channel 12 now publishes what it says are fuller details of the initial investigation by the Police Southern District into the Hamas massacre at the Re’im music festival, near Kibbutz Re’im, on the morning of October 7.

The full death toll was 364 — including 17 police officers — and 40 people were abducted. Some 4,000 people were reportedly at the event.

The investigation concluded that the terrorists did not know in advance about the party, contrary to previous reports and widespread belief, Channel 12 says. The police reached this conclusion partly on the basis of questioning of captured terrorists, and also because they did not find maps on the bodies of dead terrorists directing them to the outdoor event; in the cases of other massacres that day, the terrorists carried maps specifying their targets.

The TV report says the terrorists only realized a major event was happening in the Re’im area after the police began dispersing partygoers because of the wider Hamas invasion, and only then did they head toward it.

An armed Hamas terrorist leads a man at the Supernova music festival, near Kibbutz Reim in the Negev desert in southern Israel on October 7, where terrorists from Gaza massacred hundreds of people. (SOUTH FIRST RESPONDERS / AFP)

Channel 12 shows what it says is a timeline of the unfolding catastrophe, according to the police probe, and broadcasts a recording of a woman at the party desperately phoning the police to come at once, screaming, “they’re shooting at us.”

The report concludes that, as far as the investigation can establish, including on the basis of the questioning of captured terrorists, “had there not been a [substantial] police deployment at Yad Mordechai,” some 30 kilometers further north, “the terrorists would have been on their way to Rishon LeZion in 30 minutes, and in Tel Aviv in 40 minutes. And we would have been in a completely different story.” It does not give further details to explain this assessment.