A squad of eight Hamas terrorists wreaked havoc at Moshav Yakhini and a nearby highway during the October 7, 2023, onslaught, before all were eliminated by police officers within a few hours, according to an Israel Defense Forces probe published Wednesday.
During the attack, the terrorists murdered 11 people on Route 34, just outside the town, including a soldier and a firefighter. Inside Yakhini, four other civilians were murdered, and an IDF officer and a Border Police officer were killed in the fighting.
No hostages were taken from the community.
The probe found that “despite the difficult starting conditions, police officers, troops, and civilians “engaged the attackers while risking their lives… fought with professionalism, bravery, and self-sacrifice, and eliminated all eight terrorists who carried out the murderous attack in the community in the early hours.”
Similar to other investigations, the probe concluded that the IDF “failed to defend the Yakhini area,” mainly because the military never prepared for such an event: an Israeli community being attacked by terrorists, as well as a widespread attack on numerous towns and army bases simultaneously by thousands of terrorists.
The findings published Wednesday are the latest in a series of detailed investigations into some 40 battles and massacres that took place during Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, when about 5,600 terrorists stormed across the border, killed some 1,200 people, and took 251 hostages into Gaza, where dozens remain captive.
The probe, carried out by Lt. Col. Tzafrir Har-Shoshanim, covered all aspects of the fighting in Yakhini and the surrounding area. The IDF said the investigators made visits to the scene and reviewed every possible source of information.
The Yakhini probe was aimed at drawing specific operational conclusions for the military. It did not examine the wider picture of the military’s perception of Gaza and Hamas in recent years, which has been covered in separate, larger investigations into the IDF’s intelligence and defenses.