Israel Saw Warnings of Hamas Attack The Day Before Oct 7, Chose Not to Alert Nova Festival

'This Massacre Should Have Been Prevented' | Despite Israeli Intelligence Warnings About a Hamas Attack, the Army Didn't Evacuate the Nova Festival

Top defense officials held urgent consultations the night before October 7 about a possible Hamas attack. But no one in the IDF notified the the Nova festival organizers or the party-goers, hundreds of whom were mown down – and for nine hours, no one came to save them

by Yaniv Kubovich | Dec 5, 2023

Hours before Hamas' October 7 terror attack, Israel's security forces had enough warning signs to prepare -- at least partially -- for the possibility that terrorists would seek to infiltrate from Gaza into Israel.

Despite the fact that the Gaza Division's Northern Brigade approved the Nova music festival's staging in the Kibbutz Re'im parking lot, was responsible for its security, and its commander was aware of the warnings, no one in the IDF notified the thousands of party-goers or the party's organizers of their concerns, or demanded that the event be shut down.

Moreover, it turned out that army units that were on alert in the area at the start of the Hamas attack had no knowledge of the party.

In the earliest hours of the massacre, party organizers called the officer with whom they had been in contact and were told that the forces were in disarray and that they would have to manage on their own. The result was that about 360 festival attendees were murdered by terrorists, and at least another 40 were taken as hostages into the Gaza Strip.

The festival production team says that if they had received a warning from the army even an hour before the attack, they could have evacuated all the party-goers in time.

Even though the defense establishment did not anticipate the size of the incursion by Hamas terrorists, it received warnings the night before that the organization would try to stage an attack inside Israel.

The intelligence was based on several sources that pointed to worrisome preparations on the other side of the border. The later warning had been preceded by other intelligence that aroused concerns among officials.

The findings were worrying enough that top defense officials held two urgent consultations on Friday night in an effort to determine whether the intelligence they had in hand pointed to plans by Hamas to infiltrate Israeli territory.

The first phone meeting took place close to midnight and included senior figures from the Shin Bet security service's southern district and Military Intelligence; Gen. Oded Basyuk, head of the IDF's operations branch, Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkleman, the head of the Southern Command and other senior officers. Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi was made aware of the warnings and the urgent consultations.

A second consultation, which included now Ronen Bar, the Shin Bet chief, took place at about 3 A.M. Saturday. The commander of the Gaza Division's Northern Brigade, Col. Haim Cohen, who signed the papers on October 5 authorizing the Nova party, was aware of the warnings, and knew about the urgent meetings that were taking place that night.

Following the second meeting, the IDF decided to accept the Shin Bet's opinion that Hamas was conducting a training exercise and was not preparing for an attack. Military Intelligence accepted that view but due to concerns by the Southern Command forces were to be made ready for the possibility that Hamas might act.

The commander of the Palmachim Base, Brig. Gen. Omri Dor, received an order to step up drone monitoring of Gaza. Calling up a drone crew on a weekend is an exceptional act, reserved for concrete warnings and concern of an imminent security incident.

During the night, the Shin Bet decided that the determination that this was only a drill was too strident, and sent a crew from the "Team Tequila," the service's operational unit, tasked with preventing abductions in the event of incursions into Israel, to the Nahal Oz area.

Concurrently, the IDF decided to put two teams from the commando brigade on alert in case of incursion, to serve as temporary intervention teams until special forces arrived if needed.

At 3 A.M., an IDF spotter at the Kisufim Outpost reported a suspicious figure across the border, approaching almost to the fence and pointing at Israel. A force of Golani troops arrived on the scene, fired a few tear gas grenades, and left.

According to the spotter's testimony to Haaretz, her commanders complained that she "warns them of everything," and demanded that she be more selective in mobilizing troops.

At 4 A.M., following concerns by some in the security establishment, a few teams of the special anti-terror unit at the Latrun base, were notified to be on alert until dawn.

According to information reported in Haaretz for the first time, at around 5 A.M., lookouts mobilized a Golani force that was near the Nahal Oz outpost due to someone touching the border fence.

The force mounted a jeep and left for the location, but en route received orders from their commanders not to approach the fence area "due to fear of anti-tank or rocket fire from Gaza."

Throughout that night, no one from the IDF or Shin Bet came to the area of the party to update the party's security team on the warnings, and no one demanded to stop it. The party received military approval as it was held in an area west of Route 232, under the responsibility of the Gaza Division and the northern brigade.

Some two weeks prior to the festival, the organizers were invited to a meeting at the Gaza Division, at which they were presented with the commanders' conditions for holding the event. The permit, signed by Col. Cohen, says among other things that "the northern brigade is responsible for regional security during the event in the fence space across from the Gaza Strip."

But at 6:30 A.M., the festival attendants found out that the required forces were not stationed by the fence. One of the commanders on alert in the area even claimed to Haaretz that no one informed the forces that were placed on alert that the festival was even taking place.

Shortly after the Hamas terrorists broke through the border fence, they reached the area where the festival was held and massacred hundreds of civilians. Some police and security guards who were there tried to fight, but they couldn't hold for long against the hundreds of heavily armed terrorists who entered the area.

At 7 A.M., the party organizers tried for the first time to contact a military agency: One of them called Lt. Col. Elad Zandani, head of the Home Front Command at the Gaza Division and the man tasked with the process of approving the festival -- and told him that terrorists were shooting the partygoers.

Zandani replied that he was unable to help, the troops were collapsing, and suggested that they fend for themselves. The first IDF forces only arrived at the party scene at 3 P.M.

"The military understands that the Re'im festival will be at the center of the inquiry commissions that will be established at the end of the war," an IDF source said this week, adding: "This massacre should have been prevented."