Until last weekend, residents of Beeri in southern Israel were known for their relative affluence, thanks to their joint ownership of the town’s printing company. Now, it was the scene of an atrocity.
The kibbutz, just 5 kilometers from the Gaza border, has witnessed some of the most horrific violence perpetrated by Hamas militants during their October 7 invasion of Israel.
The Financial Times has examined evidence from the town’s surveillance system, mobile phone footage and eyewitness testimonies, revealing how militants took control of the town in the early hours of Saturday and killed at least 110 of its 1,200 residents. They controlled the town for about 17 hours.
The kibbutz’s security teams, volunteers and off-duty soldiers are overwhelmed. With members of gated communities huddled in attics, closets and bomb shelters, dozens of militants armed with assault rifles and grenade launchers roamed the streets virtually unchallenged, raising questions about the Israeli military’s preparedness for attacks.
As Hamas militants spread from Gaza, Tomer Shpirer, a 37-year-old Israeli civilian from another town, was mountain biking with friends in the rolling hills outside Beeri. . According to his uncle Simon Cifuentes, his mother called him at 6.30am because the mortars had fallen.
“Don’t worry, Mom,” Spiller said. “I’m going home now and I won’t stay a minute longer.”
Residents of Beeri also began receiving frantic calls from anxious relatives who began hearing about violence near Gaza. Ahal Besorai, 60, who is from a kibbutz but now lives in the Philippines, called his father and sister there.
6.55am: Gunman at door
Monitors above the main entrance to the fenced village showed two gunmen trying to enter the kibbutz at 6:55 a.m. on Saturday, October 7, in the middle of the Jewish Sabbath over the holiday weekend.
Financial Times analysis and first-hand accounts suggest the timestamp on the CCTV footage is an hour earlier. The coverage of this story reflects the time we believe the incident occurred.
The security video, posted by a Telegram channel called “South First Responders” and verified by the Financial Times, shows heavily armed men struggling to get around the kibbutz’s barbed wire fences and gates. After trying to squeeze through a fence, someone broke into an unoccupied guardhouse. People ducked and gates began to open as a blue Mazda approached.
CCTV footage later showed two men ambushing the car and firing multiple shots through the side window. Everyone on board died, and the bullet-riddled vehicle rolled forward as its occupants entered the kibbutz.
At 7:04 a.m., another camera about 300 meters away showed two armed men walking calmly through a square in central Berri. The town looked empty.
Meanwhile, mountain bikers arrived at the Beeri parking lot, heard gunshots and took cover, according to accounts relayed to Cifuentes by survivors. They saw a group of people fleeing an attack at the nearby Nova Music Festival. Realizing the situation was escalating, the cyclist drove away in a different direction.
Most residents were still sleeping, but when they heard rockets and gunfire, their first reaction was to run to their houses. Mamad – Many Israeli border communities have built a fortified safe room in their home. Some will remain there for the next 24 hours.
By 2011, every residence was equipped with a safe room, according to an internal website maintained by the community. These shelters can provide protection from aerial bombardment, but most shelters are not designed for ground attacks.
Before Hamas’ massive breach of Israel’s high-tech security barrier with Gaza, communities such as Beeri encountered only occasional “infiltrations” by lone Palestinians who managed to cross without being detected by border surveillance.
Meanwhile, outside Berri, Spirel was shot and wounded by gunmen who fired at his car. His uncle said he called a friend and told him: “I can’t survive. Tell my wife and family that I love them.”
Spieler’s mother called him several times. Hamas gunmen answered the phone and cursed her in Arabic. She said: “Tomer, Tomer, are you okay? Are you okay?” The gunman responded sarcastically in Hebrew: “His name is Tomer. How are you, Tomer? How are you?”
08.06am: Armed men roam the community
An hour later, eight other militants armed with assault weapons approached blue Mazda and white Toyota cars on motorcycles from a road inside the kibbutz and inspected the cars.
The gunmen rode and walked brazenly through the streets, then returned a few minutes later and pulled a dead passenger from the Mazda. They rummaged through boxes from the back seat. A man finds a mobile phone and puts it in his pocket.
At 10:06 a.m., the same camera showed two different militants pulling the two remaining bodies out of the vehicle. They got in the car, turned around, and drove out of the kibbutz.
At 10:33 a.m., a white SUV pulled up next to the victim. Two men got out of the car and loaded a body into the back seat. The SUV, registered in Gaza, then reversed out of the kibbutz and drove away.
10.30-11am: Residents executed
Around the same time, a cellphone video showed at least eight armed men walking with four hostages along a street on the far side of the kibbutz.
A subsequent video showed the four hostages lying dead on a street corner just meters away, as militants milled around the house and cruised around on motorcycles and construction trucks. The Financial Times blurred out the image of their bodies.
long wait for help
In all the footage, the militants appear to be roaming the streets of Beri without any confrontation with Israeli forces. An internal community website shows that kibbutzim are often defended by hired security personnel, but they can be caught off guard, killed or unable to respond.
The town’s volunteer standby defense team tried to engage the militants but were overpowered. “Hundreds of terrorists poured into the kibbutz from all directions,” said Maj. Gen. Itai Veruf. “The people on the kibbutz fought alone in the first hours; they were very brave.”
After a serious security incident, town security often relies on police or military support. The Israel Defense Forces’ Gaza Division is located 8 kilometers outside Reim, but the base was also attacked by Hamas and occupied for several hours.
Residents who spoke to Israeli media said a helicopter arrived at around 9 a.m. carrying 20 members of the Shaldag special forces, which is based at an air base about 60 kilometers from Palmasim. The force was quickly overwhelmed, they said, describing shouts in Arabic heard hours later. Video evidence, consistent with survivors’ accounts, showed Hamas members easily controlling Beeri throughout the morning.
When militants took over villages, they went from house to house killing residents. Survivors reported that the attackers set fire to the house in an attempt to force the occupants out of safe rooms.
Besole said his sister Yonat, her husband Dror, her 15-year-old son Noam and 13-year-old daughter Alma live on the kibbutz of the west. Based on information from witnesses, the family believes they are being held hostage.
“They hide in Mamad The door was locked,” Besole said. “Hamas terrorists burned down the house and forced them to leave. They were seen being dragged out alive.”
Israel’s response was thwarted by militants outside the village, who took up positions on the roadside and fired at approaching vehicles, according to the military and relatives of cyclist Zipirel.
“I fought here myself for an hour before entering the kibbutz,” Veruv said.
On Saturday night, IDF soldiers finally entered the house. They said the militants took hostages in homes and community buildings, leading to a standoff that lasted several hours after troops arrived.
The Israeli army reported rescuing 50 residents from the kibbutz’s communal dining hall just after midnight on Sunday morning, more than 17 hours after the first attack. As IDF soldiers regained control of the town, other militants took shelter inside houses.
“Even after we liberated it, waves of terrorists were still hiding in the house,” Veruv said. “They were on high alert and attacked again and again.”
Since Monday, the Israeli military has declared the kibbutz safe and allowed aid workers access. Zaka, an Orthodox Jewish volunteer organization, has so far removed the bodies of more than 110 residents.
Beeri’s suffering is a microcosm of the pain the war will continue to inflict on Israeli and Palestinian communities. The militants’ raids and occupation of towns are just the beginning of a conflict that is expected to claim many more lives.
The Israeli military will need timely answers to serious questions about its readiness to deal with a large-scale Hamas incursion and a delayed response to violence in Beeri and other towns near the Gaza border.
“We’re going to ask ourselves very difficult questions,” Veruv said. “But now we look forward to defending the people, rescuing survivors and transitioning our operations from defensive to offensive.”
After the attack, emergency responders found Spire’s car and what they believed to be his body, which has not yet been formally identified. His uncle traveled to the area to search for him, saw his car riddled with bullets, and concluded that no one could survive.
Besole’s father and one of his sisters survived. But he believes his other sister, Yonat, and her husband, son and daughter were dragged away by armed men and held captive.
“When you have someone missing, you look through all these horrific posts from Hamas hoping you’ll see someone in one of the videos,” he said. “It was very physically draining . . . seeing so many scenes of brutality.” But he added: “Hopefully, a good storyteller.”
Additional reporting by Chris Campbell, Id Moon-Hemingway, Mehul Srivastava and Justin Williams
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