Nahal Oz is a kibbutz in southern Israel. Located in the northwestern part of the Negev desert close to the border with the Gaza Strip and near the development towns of Sderot and Netivot, it is under the jurisdiction of Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council. In 2022, it had a population of 479. A nearby IDF military base is known by the same name.
Be'eri is a kibbutz in southern Israel. Located in the north-western Negev desert near the eastern border with the Gaza Strip, it falls under the jurisdiction of Eshkol Regional Council. In 2022 it had a population of 1,071.
The 2006 Gaza cross-border raid, known by Palestinian militants as Operation Dispersive Illusion was an armed incursion carried out by seven or eight Gazan Palestinian militants on 25 June 2006 who attacked Israel Defense Forces (IDF) positions near the Kerem Shalom Crossing through an attack tunnel. In the attack, two IDF soldiers and two Palestinian militants were killed, four IDF soldiers were wounded, one of whom was Gilad Shalit, who was captured and taken to the Gaza Strip.
The Hannibal Directive, also translated as Hannibal Procedure or Hannibal Protocol, is the name of a controversial procedure used by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers by enemy forces. According to one version, it says that "the kidnapping must be stopped by all means, even at the price of striking and harming our own forces." It was introduced in 1986, after a number of abductions of IDF soldiers in Lebanon and subsequent controversial prisoner exchanges. The full text of the directive was never published, and until 2003, Israeli military censorship forbade any discussion of the subject in the press. The directive has been changed several times, and in 2016 Gadi Eizenkot ordered the formal revocation of the standing directive and the reformulation of the protocol.
Yossi Bachar is an Israeli Major general (Aluf) who commands the IDF's General Staff Corps.
On 7 October 2023, Hamas and several other Palestinian militant groups launched coordinated armed incursions from the Gaza Strip into the Gaza Envelope of southern Israel, the first invasion of Israeli territory since the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The attack coincided with the Jewish religious holiday Simchat Torah. Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups named the attacks Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, while in Israel they are referred to as Black Saturday or the Simchat Torah Massacre, and internationally as the 7 October attacks. The attacks initiated the ongoing Israel–Hamas war.
On 7 October 2023, the Islamic Palestinian nationalist militant group Hamas initiated a sudden attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip. As part of the attack, 364 civilians were killed and many more wounded by Hamas at the Supernova Sukkot Gathering, an open-air music festival during the Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret near kibbutz Re'im. Hamas also took 40 people hostage. This mass killing had the largest number of casualties out of a number of massacres targeting Israeli civilians in villages adjacent to the Gaza Strip, that occurred as part of the 7 October attack, alongside those at the moshavim of Netiv HaAsara, Be'eri, Kfar Aza, Nir Oz and Holit.
On 7 October 2023, in the opening attacks of the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Hamas militants carried out a massacre at Be'eri, an Israeli kibbutz near the Gaza Strip.
On 7 October 2023, as part of the Hamas-led attack on Israel at the beginning of the Israel–Hamas war, Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups abducted 251 people from Israel to the Gaza Strip, including children, women, and elderly people. In addition to hostages with only Israeli citizenship, almost half of the hostages are foreign nationals or have multiple citizenships. Some hostages were Negev Bedouins. The precise ratio of soldiers and civilians among the captives is unknown. The captives are likely being held in different locations in the Gaza Strip.
On 7 October 2023, as part of the surprise attack on Israel, Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip, led by Hamas, invaded the Nir Oz kibbutz in southern Israel. They killed scores of kibbutz residents, burned homes, and abducted civilians. According to the Israeli military, up to 150 militants participated in the massacre.
On 7 October 2023, the Ezzedeen al-Qassam Brigades attacked Holit, a kibbutz close to the border fence with the Gaza Strip, as part of the 7 October attacks on Israel.
On 7 October 2023, the Hamas Nuseirat Battalion attacked Nir Yitzhak, a kibbutz close to the border fence with the Gaza Strip, as part of a surprise attack on Israel.
On 7 October 2023, Noa Argamani, an Israeli woman, was abducted by Hamas during the Re'im music festival massacre, part of the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. In one of the first Hamas videos released of the massacre, she was seen being taken away on a motorcycle as she yelled, "Don't kill me!" Her arms were outstretched toward her boyfriend Avinatan Or, who was also kidnapped. The footage of her kidnapping became a symbol of the hostage crisis and led to Argamani being described as "the face of the Nova music festival hostages".
On 7 October 2023, as part of the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel and the Nir Oz massacre, the Palestinian Islamist militant organization Hamas allegedly abducted the Israeli-Argentinian/Peruvian Bibas family from the Nir Oz kibbutz: 9-month-old Kfir, 4-year-old Ariel, 32-year-old mother Shiri, and her 34-year-old husband Yarden. The youngest child, baby Kfir, was the youngest hostage taken in the 7 October 2023 attacks. Shiri's parents, who also lived on the kibbutz, were later found murdered.
On 7 October 2023, 21-year-old French-Israeli woman Mia Schem was abducted by Hamas during the Re'im music festival massacre, part of the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. Her abduction, a video of her in captivity in Gaza, and subsequent release on 30 November garnered international media attention, and she became a face of the hostage crisis during the Israel–Hamas war.
In specific cases there were incidents of friendly fire in the 2023 Israel–Hamas war. The vast majority of casualties in the conflict were killed by the opposing side, i.e. Israelis killed by Palestinian militants and Palestinians killed by the Israeli military. According to the IDF, as of May 2024, 49 of the 278 Israeli soldiers killed during the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip were killed by friendly fire and in other accidents.
The rescue of Ori Megidish was an Israel Defense Forces military operation on 30 October 2023 during the Israel–Hamas war in Gaza that led to the rescue of Israeli soldier Uri Magidish from Hamas imprisonment in Gaza to Israel. Megidish was rescued in a joint operation between the IDF and the Israeli Shin Bet, based on specific intelligence of her whereabouts. Two Hamas militants were killed during the operation.
Naama Levy is an Israeli soldier serving in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). On the morning of 7 October 2023, during the Hamas attack on Israel, she was abducted from the IDF surveillance base at Nahal Oz near the Gaza–Israel barrier.
Elhanan Team, also spelled Elchanan Team or Kalmanson Team, consisted of brothers Elhanan and Menachem Kalmanson and their nephew Itiel Zohar. After the outbreak of the October 7 attacks, the three traveled from their home to confront Hamas militants during the massacre in Kibbutz Be'eri near the Gaza Strip. Elhanan was killed on the morning of October 8.
Qaid Farhan al-Qadi, an Israeli-Bedouin held hostage by Hamas since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel was rescued on August 27, 2024, after 326 days in captivity. Al-Qadi is from the Al-Kasum Regional Council, near the city of Rahat in the Negev. He was one of 251 people kidnapped from Israel, six of whom were Bedouin. The rescue operation was conducted by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Shin Bet in southern Gaza.
