The Israeli army’s first published report about the events of 7 October 2023 praises the general who led Israeli forces in battle at Kibbutz Be’eri on that day for ordering tank fire at a home killing up to 10 civilian captives.
The shelling killed almost everyone in and around the house, including dozens of Palestinian resistance fighters.
The report amounts to a shoddy cover-up, inconsistent with known facts, and an intentional rewriting of what happened to exonerate Israeli forces of killing their own citizens that day.
Although the report was supposed to have been written by officers with no connection to those who fought in the battle, one of its authors was Lieutenant Colonel Elihai Bin Nun who fought at Be’eri on 7 October under Brigadier General Barak Hiram, the commander of Israeli forces at the kibbutz on that day, The New York Times revealed.
When Bin Nun’s participation in the battle was revealed, the army removed from the report any mention of his role as an author, the Israeli outlet Ynet noted.
The army’s full account of what happened at Kibutz Be’eri has not been made public, but the Israeli military published official summaries of its report in Hebrew and English on 11 July.
As a result of its inquiry, the army commends Hiram for acting in a “professional and ethical manner” by ordering the fatal tank fire. It whitewashes the civilian deaths the shelling caused, only accepting responsibility for one of the 13 captives killed at the home of kibbutz resident Pessi Cohen.
The army only admits to killing one civilian, Adi Dagan, as his death was directly witnessed by the only captive to survive the tank shelling, Adi’s wife Hadas Dagan.
The couple and four other Israeli civilians, including Pessi herself, spent the battle on the grassy lawn outside the home, lying low to avoid the hailstorm of bullets that whistled over their heads for hours.
While the army’s full account of the battle has not been made public, a detailed six-page synopsis of the report published by Israel Army Radio military correspondent Doron Kadosh sheds further light on the events. It acknowledges that the number of civilians inside the house was seven.
In its first public explanation of the incident one week after the 7 October attack, the army asserted that not seven civilians had died in the house but 15 – and that eight of them were babies.
Hellbound and Down 