At least 50 Palestinians were found killed on Friday, local authorities said, after the Israeli military pulled back from several areas in central and northern Gaza, leaving entire neighborhoods razed and residents reeling from a spate of heavy attacks.

More than nine months of fighting in Gaza has turned swathes of the territory into rubble-filled wasteland. The Israeli military offensive following the Hamas-led October 7 attacks has triggered a sprawling humanitarian crisis, crushed the health system and depleted food and water supplies. The UN warned Tuesday of widespread famine across the strip, and relief workers say Israeli aid restrictions mean they are unable to support Palestinians trying to survive the war. Human rights agencies reiterated calls for a ceasefire, as negotiations between Israel and Hamas this week hit yet another roadblock.

Israel launched its military offensive on October 7 after the militant group Hamas, which governs Gaza, attacked southern Israel. At least 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 others abducted, according to Israeli authorities.

Israeli strikes in Gaza have since killed 38,345 Palestinians and injured another 88,295 people, according to the Ministry of Health there.

‘We want a total ceasefire’

Palestinian residents surveyed the desolate landscape in Tal al-Hawa neighborhood on Friday, as the sound of Israeli drones buzzed overhead.

“We want a total ceasefire,” she said. “We don’t want to be displaced from one place to another. The fear is in the eyes of the young ones.”

The UN warned that Israeli evacuation orders for people to leave Gaza City on Wednesday “will only fuel mass suffering for Palestinian families,” adding that many have already been displaced multiple times.

Six decomposing female bodies were found in a quarry in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi on Friday, according to police, sparking a protest at a nearby police station.

“The alarm was raised following the discovery of six severely mutilated bodies, all female, in various stages of decomposition” in the quarry, which was being used as a dumpsite, according to a statement by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.

The area has been cordoned off as a crime scene, and “preliminary investigations suggest a similar mode of killing of the deceased,” the statement said. The bodies were found wrapped in “nylon papers and reinforced with nylon ropes” and have been transported to a mortuary where “they await postmortem examinations,” police added.

The identities of the dead or how long the bodies had been at the quarry were not immediately clear.

The horrifying scene comes after weeks of anti-government protests over a since-scrapped finance bill. The protests resulted in scores of civilian deaths amid a heavy-handed response from Kenyan police. Human rights groups have also accused security forces of abducting Kenyans during the protests.

The discovery of the bodies on Friday has sparked fresh public anger and brought a new spotlight to Kenya’s femicide crisis, just months after thousands of women marched on the streets with banners reading: “Stop killing us.”

Fallout from protests

Dozens of people were killed in police shootings across the country in just one day of the anti-government protests in June, according to Kenya’s Police Reforms Working Group (PRWG).

Kenya’s presidency announced that Japheth Koome, the country’s police chief, resigned on Friday. His deputy, Douglas Kanja, has been named acting police chief.

Friday’s move comes after nearly all of President William Ruto’s cabinet was fired, with the exceptions of Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua and Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi.

The decision was taken “upon reflection, and a holistic appraisal” of his cabinet, he told reporters from State House Nairobi.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Winston Churchill, often considered Britain’s greatest leader, resigned at 80 in the face of mounting health problems. Keir Starmer, Britain’s newest leader, wants to force lawmakers in the country’s upper chamber to step down at the same age. Does this mean he thinks octogenarians like President Joe Biden should step back from politics?

Despite growing questions about Biden’s mental acuity and fitness for a second term, Starmer said the 81-year-old president had been “in good form” when the two met for talks, but “of course” he would say if he was concerned about him.

Starmer, 61, is the latest in a series of world leaders who have been asked whether Biden is too old to campaign and govern effectively. But he spoke positively about their discussions at the summit on Wednesday.

“We were billed for 45 minutes. We probably went on for the best part of an hour, covered a lot of ground – and he was in good form,” Starmer told Tapper.

Starmer said the talks were “a really good opportunity” for him to “speak to the president about the special relationship” between their two countries. He said Biden “deserves credit” for presiding over a summit that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called a success.

Zelensky’s comments were made before Biden mistakenly introduced the Ukrainian leader as “President Putin,” having to correct himself hastily. In a press conference later Thursday evening, Biden also mistakenly called his Vice President, Kamala Harris “Vice President Trump” when discussing if she could beat the former president.

On his plan to force lawmakers in the House of Lords – which scrutinizes the government and makes recommendations on laws – to step down after turning 80, Starmer said the policy was “more to do with the size” of the unelected upper chamber than the fitness of elderly politicians.

“Our second chamber is the biggest second chamber in the world. We’ve got over 800 members. We’ve got to get the size down,” he said.

Starmer is not alone in trying to downplay concerns about Biden’s age. French President Emmanuel Macron, attending the summit in a weakened position with his country in political limbo after a snap parliamentary election, said Biden remained “in charge” and “clear on the issues he knows well.”

Starmer was also asked by Tapper to clarify comments made by David Lammy, a longstanding Labour politician who became Britain’s foreign secretary last week.

In 2018, Lammy called then-President Donald Trump – who will also turn 80 in office if re-elected to a second term in November – a “woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathizing sociopath” and a “profound threat to the international order.”

Starmer said his government will “work with whoever is elected” in November, but stressed “I’m a progressive and we’re sister parties with the Democrats.”

Starmer’s comments echoed his previous remarks on a potential Trump presidency; he told the BBC last year he would “have to make it work,” though that doesn’t mean “we would agree on everything.”

Asked about Trump’s threats to leave NATO and cut a deal with Putin, likely ending the war in Ukraine on terms favorable to Russia, Starmer praised the “clarity of purpose” that other members have shown in the alliance during the summit. He also said Britain remains “absolutely committed” to raising its defense spending to 2.5% – above the NATO guideline of 2% – but did not provide a timeline for this.

“My position as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom could not be clearer, which is an unshakable support for NATO,” he said. “We were proudly one of the countries that was there at the founding of NATO… We’re proud of that history.”

Tacking to the center

A week ago, Starmer guided the Labour Party to a historic victory, winning a majority of 172 seats in the House of Commons and bringing to an end 14 years of Conservative rule.

But, almost immediately, Starmer’s victory was described as hollow and his mandate fragile, with critics pointing out Labour’s relatively low share of the popular vote, despite its commanding victory under Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system.

Asked if his victory was fueled more by anger towards the Conservatives than enthusiasm for Labour, Starmer hit back, saying his team deserved praise for turning the party around after it slumped to a dismal defeat in 2019 under the left-wing leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.

“I took over the Labour Party four and a half years ago. We’d just had the worst general election result since 1935. The pessimists were saying, ‘The Labour Party will never win a general election again.’ The optimists said, ‘Well you might, but it will take you 10 years,’” Starmer said.

“I said, ‘No, we’re going to do it in one parliamentary term. But we’ve got to be ruthless, we’ve got to be steely, we’re going to change the Labour Party, we’re going to turn it inside out and make sure it’s a party that always says: Country first, party second.’”

He said he had managed to pull his party back to the center ground, shunning the extremes.

“Brits are reasonable, tolerant – they don’t much like the extreme left, they don’t much like the extreme right. And we underestimate that,” he said. “One of the phrases I used in the election was we need a politics that trod more lightly on people’s lives. And that’s very important in Britain.”

Although he ruled out trying to rejoin the European Union, Starmer said he wanted to “reset” Britain’s relationship with the bloc. Starmer’s “number one mission,” he said, is to restore Britain to economic growth, which has virtually flatlined since the 2008 financial crisis

Starmer has softened his view on the British monarchy, having once talked about abolishing it, and said he was looking forward to his weekly audience with King Charles III, now he’s become prime minister.

“It is always valuable to listen to what he has to say. He’s incredibly interested in politics, in the affairs across the United Kingdom, and global affairs,” said Starmer. “They’re a really good frank exchange of views and long may they continue.”

A beachgoer who was swept 80 kilometers (50 miles) out to sea in a floating ring has been rescued off Japan’s east coast some 36 hours after she went missing, authorities said.

The coast guard flew the woman by helicopter to the city of Yokohama, where she was taken to the hospital for assessment following her overnight ordeal.

“She is dehydrated, but her consciousness is clear and she is not in a life-threatening condition. There is no need for hospitalization,” the coast guard said.

The coast guard launched a search for the woman after she went missing from a beach in Shimoda city, Shizuoka prefecture, at about 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK reported.

About 30 minutes after entering the water, the woman realized she was drifting and was unable to return to the beach, she told officials, according to NHK.

Authorities said the woman was likely swept away by currents and moderately strong winds, NHK reported.

Japan, a nation of more than 6,000 islands, is home to some of Asia’s most beautiful beaches – and they are especially popular with tourists looking to cool off during the sizzling summer months.

But not every day at the beach passes without incident.

In 2019, more than 500 people were rescued in the country following accidents at the beach, according to the Japan Coast Guard’s most recent statistics.

Australia has charged two Russian-born Australian citizens with preparing for an espionage offense after allegedly obtaining information from the Australian Defence Force (ADF) that they were intending to hand to Russian authorities.

The citizens, a married couple, had been in Australia for more than 10 years and were arrested Thursday at their home in Everton Park, a northern suburb of Brisbane, according to the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).

The Russian-born woman, 40, became an Australian citizen in 2016, and was an army private working as an information systems technician with the ADF for several years, the agencies said in a joint news conference. Her Russian-born husband, 62, obtained Australian citizenship in 2020, they added.

“The AFP will allege the individuals worked together to access Australian Defense Force material that related to Australia’s national security interests,” said AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw.

The couple were not named by authorities in Friday’s announcement, but both are expected to appear in court later that day.

Australian Federal Police will allege the woman went to Russia without notifying Australian authorities while she was on long-term leave from the ADF.

“We allege that while she was in Russia, she instructed her husband, who remained in Australia, on how to log into her official work account from their Brisbane home,” Kershaw said.

“We allege her husband would access requested material and would send to his wife in Russia. We allege they sought that information with the intention of providing it to Russian authorities.”

Kershaw said a key focus of the investigation is whether that information was handed over to authorities. If it was, the charge could be upgraded to espionage.

It’s the first time the charge of preparing for an espionage offence has been used. It carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison. An upgraded charge carries a maximum term of 25 years in prison to life.

When the Gaza sunshine was at its hottest, Andrey Kozlov said the Hamas fighters would cover him with blankets, leaving him to stew in his sweat. When he asked about his family, they would say they had forgotten him. When they pulled the blindfold from his eyes, they said they would kill him and film his murder.

The 27-year-old said he suffered intense psychological – and some physical – abuse at the hands of Hamas. He cannot bring himself to describe all that happened to him and the two other hostages he was kept with during his eight months of captivity in Gaza.

After being snatched from the Nova music festival on October 7, Kozlov, a Russian-Israeli citizen, said he was tied up for “three days with rope, then until the middle of December with chains.” During these months he was subjected to “creative” forms of punishment: One guard “told us a lot that Israel wants to kill us” and that they were a problem from which Israel was trying to rid itself.

Kozlov strove not to believe the lies, he said, but the result was that, when Israeli soldiers last month burst into the building in which he was being held, he thought they had been sent to kill him.

Instead, it was a stunning rescue operation that brought him and the two others home – as well as Noa Argamani, who was held in a nearby building. But it left in its wake a trail of destruction: Gaza authorities say at least 274 Palestinians were killed in the raid and the ensuing firefight with Hamas militants.

Kozlov was nearing the end of his shift as a security guard at the Nova festival when Hamas fighters began to pour over the border. He had moved from Russia to Israel two years earlier, and taken the job because it was “easy money.” When he clocked off, Kozlov thought “I will come back home, I will sleep and everything will be good. But no, it didn’t happen.”

Minutes later, he was sprinting through a forest with “maybe 200, 300 people,” panicked by the sound of gunshots and a stream of gruesome nearby videos that had already emerged online. But as they stumbled out into a field, Kozlov saw – he recalled in broken English – “a car full of guys in green uniform. And they shoot in the air, they shoot already on us.”

Hiding in the bushes was no help. He was swiftly found and taken to Gaza, where he was held in several different places with Almog Meir Jan and Shlomi Ziv, before their eventual rescue in Nuseirat, in the center of the enclave.

On his first day, his captor “took the fabric from my eyes and showed me with signs” what he was planning to do. The man pointed to himself – “I” – then tapped his watch – “tomorrow” – then pointed to Kozlov – “you” – then made a camera sign, clicking its shutter – “film” – then made a gun with his fingers, pulling the trigger – “kill.”

Kozlov said he thought that day would be his last, but – as the hours passed – that fear slowly subsided. Days later, he said he understood “that probably they’re not gonna kill us.” Using signs again, they explained to Kozlov that they wanted to swap him: “You’re going to Israel, our people go to Gaza and the West Bank.”

For the first three months, the sound of Israeli bombing was constant, Kozlov said: “We were afraid of every bomb that we heard. Every time you started to hide in the corners of our room.” His captors laughed, he said, asking what they were afraid of.

They were moved between houses several times, Kozlov said, with some places giving them enough food. After being unchained in December, some places where he was held gave him the chance to exercise – “squats, pushups” and the like.

But he was exposed to prolonged psychological abuse, he said, by guards watching over them wearing masks, holding Kalashnikovs and a “big knife.” The main guard, he said, had a “split” personality and often “got crazy.”

“He has two personalities,” Kozlov said. “He told us: ‘I have two faces: A good one, but I don’t want you to see the second face – like, I can kill you.”

Some mornings, the guard would be friendly, offering to play cards with them. But in other mornings Kozlov would “wake up and you understand – ah, the second face. You don’t talk with him at all.”

Kozlov would be punished for arbitrary things, he said. Once, after washing his hands with drinking water before eating, the guard “noticed and he said, ‘I told you not to do this, yes?’” The guard had someone cover Kozlov with “really thick blankets, in the middle of May,” and leave him in the heat for an hour and a half.

Kozlov’s testimony chimes with that of other rescued hostages. The doctor in charge of medical treatment for Kozlov and the three others rescued in the Israeli operation said they were beaten and described their captivity as a “harsh, harsh experience, with a lot of abuse, almost every day.”

Still, Kozlov considers himself “lucky.” He said he saw other hostages during his eight months in Gaza, “but I don’t want to talk about it… It’s painful and it’s gonna be dangerous for them,” he said. Were they in worse shape than him? “Yes they were.”

For that reason, Kozlov implored Israeli officials to “try to understand how we [the hostages] felt all this time. We need to bring them home as soon as possible. I don’t know how. But we need to do this immediately.”

Talks resumed in the Qatari capital Doha last Friday. Over the weekend, Hamas agreed to compromise on a major sticking point for Israel – that Netanyahu’s government commits to a permanent ceasefire in Gaza before signing an agreement. But a statement from Netanyahu’s office on Sunday cast doubt on the deal, laying out several “principles” Israel is not prepared to abandon, including resumed fighting in Gaza “until all objectives of the war have been achieved.”

For Kozlov, the days he was captured – and rescued – have become landmarks in his life. October 7 became his second “birthday;” June 18, his third. He wants the 120 remaining hostages to be able to mark their own dates.

British police have launched a manhunt after two suitcases containing human remains were discovered on England’s Clifton Suspension Bridge, Avon and Somerset Police said Thursday.

The police force received a call at 11.57 p.m. local time on Wednesday about a man with a suitcase “acting suspiciously” on the bridge in the southwestern city of Bristol.

By the time officers appeared, police said the man had disappeared but two suitcases containing human remains were found.

Police have not yet identified either the man or the deceased, though initial inquiries have found that the man took a taxi to the bridge.

“Our immediate priority is to locate the man who took the suitcases to the bridge, identify the deceased, and inform their next of kin,” the police said.

Panama has placed barbed wire across several routes in the Darién Gap, the country’s Ministry of Public Security said in a statement Thursday, in a bid to block migrants making their way north.

At least five passages near Panama’s border with Colombia have been shut using barbed wire installed by the country’s border agency (Senafront). Meanwhile, Panama’s navy is patrolling areas in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.

The government said the navy is instructed to stop and detain people traveling by boat with “irregular migrants” and to hand them over to police or immigration authorities from Colombia. On land, border authorities have closed irregular access areas with the goal of rerouting people through established border points.

The United States and Panama signed an agreement this month on immigration issues that aimed to “close the passage of illegal migrants” through the Darién Gap. Panama’s President José Raúl Mulino has also vowed to stop the Central American country from being a transit route for migrants.

“I will not allow Panama to be a path open to thousands of people who enter our country illegally supported by an entire international organization related to drug and human trafficking,” Mulino said at his swearing-in ceremony on July 1.

Mulino visited the Darién Gap days before Thursday’s announcement, saying 300 border agents were going to be deployed to monitor the area and declaring that no one would enter Panamanian territory without a passport or a valid document.

Colombia’s Ombudsman’s Office has criticized Panama’s latest move saying that the barbed wires affect at least one Colombian town’s commercial and cultural exchange with areas in Panama.

“The barbed wires in the jungle will only bring drowned people into the sea. Migration is stopped by removing economic blockades and improving the economy of the south,” Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro wrote on X.

The Darién Gap, a mountainous rainforest region connecting South and Central America, has seen an increase in the number of migrants willing to risk their lives and safety to cross it.

The 66-mile (106-kilometer) hike through the Darién Gap brings migrants from Colombia to Panama and is a crucial passage for those – many of whom come from other Latin American countries – hoping to reach the US and Canada.

Panamanian figures show at least 174,513 migrants crossed the treacherous Darién Gap, from January to June 6 of this year.

The latest figures are higher than around the same period in 2023, when more than 166,000 crossings were reported, according to Panama’s National Migration Service. According to migration service figures, a record 520,000 people crossed the jungle last year.

Other countries along the migration route have also taken steps to restrict people’s movement. In June, Ecuador said it would temporarily suspend a visa waiver agreement with China over what it called an increase in irregular migration flows of Chinese citizens.

The last of five Americans arrested in recent months in Turks and Caicos under gun control laws that make bringing firearms or ammunition into the territory without prior permission from police a crime has been sentenced.

Michael Lee Evans, of Texas; Sharitta Grier, of Florida; Bryan Hagerich, of Pennsylvania; Ryan Tyler Watson, of Oklahoma; and Tyler Wenrich, of Virginia, were all accused of bringing various amounts of ammunition to Turks and Caicos, a 40-island chain southeast of the Bahamas.

All have said the ammunition recovered from their luggage was not intentionally packed, according to American lawmakers who went to the British Overseas Territory in May as part of efforts to petition for their expedited release.

Though the infractions had carried a mandatory 12-year prison sentence and fine – with reductions only in “exceptional circumstances” – a mid-June revision clarified courts may impose a fine, a custodial sentence or both in exceptional circumstances, a member of the territory’s House of Assembly said June 14.

All five Americans arrested under the law have pleaded guilty, been sentenced and headed back to the US. Here’s what we know about the laws in Turks and Caicos and the affected Americans:

No constitutional right to carry firearms in Turks and Caicos

Though the territory doesn’t manufacture firearms or ammunition, the number of firearms finding their way to the islands has increased – and that’s a worry, Turks and Caicos Premier Washington Misick said.

While it is legal to fly in the US with unloaded firearms and ammunition in checked baggage, according to the Transportation Security Administration, taking firearms or ammunition into Turks and Caicos without prior permission from police is “strictly forbidden.”

The mandatory sentence was in place to protect those on the islands, Gov. Dileeni Daniel-Selvaratnam has said, adding judges could use their discretion to impose reduced sentences in “exceptional circumstances.”

But no special treatment should be given to any group, the Turks and Caicos premier said: “The law must be applied even-handedly.”

Even so, the “amendment was introduced to address concerns about the rigidity of the previous sentencing framework, which mandated both imprisonment and financial penalties for all firearms offenses, regardless of the specific context or severity,” House of Assembly member Edwin Astwood said in a statement.

“This often resulted in disproportionately harsh sentences that did not always fit the nature of the crime or the circumstances of the offender.”

US citizens are not being targeted, Turks and Caicos officials have said. Of the 195 people sentenced for firearm-related offenses over the past six years, only seven were US citizens, Misick has said, and none got a 12-year sentence.

While Turks and Caicos collaborates with the US in battling narcotics, terrorism and money laundering, “our laws and processes are not congruent,” Misick said.

“We are a separate sovereignty. We respect the United States’ laws and we will never think to interfere in its operation.”

Sharitta Shinese Grier

Grier planned to pay the fine that same day and board a same-day flight from Turks and Caicos to the United States, Mair said.

“I didn’t know what was going to happen because I couldn’t believe it was in there,” she said in May. “They went through my bag and said they found rounds at the bottom of my carry-on.”

Grier was released on bail but couldn’t leave the island until her case concluded and had to report to a local police station weekly, the station reported.

“I’m just broken,” Grier said in May.

Bryan Hagerich

Hagerich was the first of the five to return to the United States after he received a suspended 52-week sentence in late May, which meant he didn’t face immediate incarceration, his representatives said. He was also given a $6,700 fine.

The father of two pleaded guilty to possession of 20 rounds of ammunition, according to the Turks and Caicos government.

Hagerich paid the fine and was allowed to leave the British Overseas Territory. He got home May 24, according to Johnathan Franks, a spokesperson for the Bring Our Families Home Campaign, a group that helps wrongfully detained Americans secure release.

“We have a lot of catching up to do,” Hagerich said. “A lot of memories to make together. Just so elated to see them. They’ve been so strong through all this.”

Before Hagerich’s sentencing, his wife had packed two suitcases – one if he was sentenced to prison and another if he were allowed to return home – they said in an exclusive interview with “Good Morning America.”

“It was dark; you have no concept of time,” Hagerich said about his week-long stay in jail in Turks and Caicos. “I was with three folks that were accused of murder. It was scary.”

Tyler Wenrich

Wenrich pleaded guilty to possession of ammunition while traveling to Turks and Caicos.

He was sentenced May 28 to three weeks time-served in jail and fined $9,000, said Kimo Tynes​​​​, a Government of the Turks and Caicos Islands spokesperson said that day in a statement.

He returned home to Virginia on May 30.

The Hon. Justice Davidson Baptiste cited exceptional circumstances in Wenrich’s case, saying, “Enforcing the mandatory minimum would have been arbitrary and disproportionate, and would not serve the public interest.”

Wenrich was charged with possession of two 9 mm rounds, according to the Turks and Caicos government.

Michael Lee Evans

Evans pleaded guilty to possession of seven 9 mm rounds of ammunition and appeared before the court on April 24 via video conference.

He was allowed to return to the United States on bail due to a “severe” medical situation and to attend his June sentencing hearing virtually, said his attorney Oliver Smith, King’s Counsel.

Evans got a suspended 33-month sentence, and his attorney believes it is unlikely he will have to serve time in jail.

Ryan Tyler Watson

Watson was visiting Turks and Caicos with his wife in April to celebrate several friends’ 40th birthdays when he was charged with possession of four rounds of ammunition. He plead guilty in May.

Watson soon returned home and reunited with his family, US Sen. James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican, said on X.

US lawmakers tried to free Americans

The Americans’ arrest has stoked tension between US officials and their counterparts just a few hundred miles away. A request by a US congressional delegation to the islands in May for charges against the five Americas to be dropped did not yield the desired result.

“Unfortunately, despite our willingness to work with Turks and Caicos officials to get our constituents home, we were not able to find a path forward today,” Republican US Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma said May 20 in a statement.

“It’s to the point now, (where) every third week an American is being detained wrongfully (in) Turks and Caicos,” Republican US Rep. Guy Reschenthaler told ABC News the same week.

In a House of Assembly address, the islands’ Misick said, “The (accusations) of congressman (Reschenthaler) against the government and people of the Turks and Caicos Islands are nothing more than diabolic falsehoods.”

“They were innocent mistakes,” he said. “Any other nation would handle this with a fine in sending that person back to the country of origin. Here, that’s not happening.”

On May 28, Mullin welcomed the news of Wenrich’s release, calling it “another step in the right direction,” according to a post on X.

“I again encourage TCI to address the unintended consequences of their law to prevent this from happening again.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) internal investigation into the failures to protect the kibbutz of Be’eri on October 7 found that the Israeli military “failed in its mission to protect the residents” and “was not prepared for the extensive infiltration scenario” by Hamas that day, which involved “multiple infiltration points by thousands of terrorists attacking dozens of locations simultaneously.”

Be’eri, located in southern Israel, was one of the hardest hit communities in the October 7 attacks when Hamas militants stormed the kibbutz, killing 101 of its residents, including children. Thirty people were abducted from the kibbutz that day.

The inquiry said the military had trained for isolated and specific infiltrations. “As a result, there were no additional reserve forces in the area that could have been sent to Kibbutz Be’eri,” the inquiry said.

Responding to the inquiry’s report, the Chief of the General Staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said it “clearly illustrates the magnitude of the failure and the scale of the disaster that befell the residents of the south who defended their families with their bodies for many hours while the IDF was not there to protect them.”

The inquiry found that “the IDF struggled to create a clear and accurate situational assessment of what was happening in the kibbutz until the afternoon of October 7,” even though the local emergency team had provided an updated assessment.

“Combat in the area during the initial hours was characterized by a lack of command and control, a lack of coordination, and a lack of order among the different forces and units. This led to several incidents where security forces grouped at the entrance to the kibbutz without immediately engaging in combat,” the report said.

“The inquiry found that the security officials did not provide sufficient warning to the residents of Kibbutz Be’eri about the infiltration of terrorists during the initial hours of the terrorist attack,” the report continued.

The inquiry concluded that the turning point came only when a senior officer was appointed to coordinate forces in the area, leading to the regaining of operational control of the kibbutz.

“Despite operational errors and mistakes in force deployment, the inquiry team noted that the combat in Be’eri included a series of acts of heroism and supreme courage by the fighting forces, commanders, and security personnel who fought in the kibbutz, saving many residents,” the report said.

It also said “the bravery of the Be’eri residents and the members of the kibbutz’s civilian rapid response team is commendable and was crucial in stabilizing the defensive line during the first hours of combat, preventing the attack from spreading to other parts of the kibbutz.”

The inquiry also found that the security forces who fought in the area “operated with great bravery and heroism.” 31 security personnel were killed in the area after some “340 terrorists infiltrated the kibbutz,” of whom about 100 were killed, it said.

Timeline of attack

The inquiry team found that that the attack on Be’eri began at around 7 a.m. local time on October 7 and that Hamas controlled the kibbutz for about four hours.

During this period, the “first IDF soldiers arrive, are hit, evacuate the wounded, exit the kibbutz, and, positioning themselves at the entrance of the kibbutz, engage in combat with the terrorists who reached the gate.”

By 4.15 p.m., the 99th Division had established itself at the kibbutz and began organizing command and control.

By 6 p.m., “about 700 IDF soldiers and security forces are operating in the area of the kibbutz,” the inquiry found.

The Chief of the General Staff, Lt. Gen. Halevi, accepted the conclusions of the inquiry, and acknowledged that “the IDF did not fulfil its mission to defend the residents in the most grave manner and failed in its mission.”

Halevi noted that “from the afternoon hours onwards, forces were waiting outside the kibbutz while the massacre continued inside. This situation is extremely grave and cannot occur.”

“The reasons for this were found to include that commanders who arrived with forces entered the kibbutz with a part of the force to better understand the situation; some forces did not initiate contact since they did not understand the severity of the situation and the lack of adequate forces; some of those waiting outside were support forces providing a perimeter for those engaged in combat inside the kibbutz,” he said.

As for prioritizing the evacuation of wounded soldiers, Halevi said that civilian protection was the highest-priority mission. “Soldiers must always give priority to assisting civilians in evacuation, defense and any other need that arises in a combat zone,” he said.

Separately, Halevi told a graduation ceremony Thursday for new officers that the IDF had worked with all partners “to understand in detail and depth what happened and what we must learn to prevent it from happening again in the future.”

Be’eri kibbutz survivors were presented with the findings of the report earlier Thursday.

“It can be said that the investigation was thorough and helped the members of the kibbutz understand a little the depth and complexity of the fighting in the various sectors of the kibbutz,” a statement released by Be’eri spokesperson Michal Paykin said.

But he said some important questions remained unanswered.

“For example: Why did the many military forces who gathered at the gate not enter the kibbutz for many hours, when the kibbutz was burning, and its residents were crying for help? What caused the intelligence failure that enabled the Hamas invasion plan, and how was the border fence breached without an immediate response from the IDF?” he said.

Members of “Kibbutz Be’eri did not need the results of the investigation to feel the failure of the IDF” that morning. “The failure of the army has been burned into our bodies and in our hearts for nine months,” the statement adds.

Former residents are now calling for a state commission of inquiry to “examine the conduct of all the parties and provide us with answers with which we can begin to recover,” the statement added.

“Finally, and most importantly, we demand to deal with the abandonment that is happening right now across the border – the abandonment of the hostages to their fate for nine months.  The ongoing failure to return them to this day must stop,” the statement ends.

Speaking about a state inquiry, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Thursday at the officers’ graduation ceremony: “It should check all of us: decision-makers and executive officers, the government, the army and the security agencies, in this government, and in the governments of the last decade that led to the events of October 7.”

“It should examine me, the Minister of Defense, it should examine the Prime Minister, the Chief of Staff and the head of the Shin Bet, the IDF, and the national bodies subordinate to the government,” Gallant said.

A commission “must examine the intelligence and operational failure of the events of the 7th October,” as well as examine “the errors made in assessing the enemy’s capabilities and in warning of its intentions  – that culminated on the 7th of October,” Gallant said.

Focus on 13 hostages

One focus of the inquiry into events at Be’eri on October 7 was the effort to save 13 people held hostage in a house at the kibbutz.

There had been speculation that the hostages had been killed by tank fire from the Israeli military as it tried to force entry to the house, but the inquiry found that Hamas operatives at the house probably killed the hostages.

“After gunfire was heard from within the house and the terrorists communicated their intent to commit suicide and kill the hostages, the security forces decided to breach the house to attempt to save the hostages, and conducted combat operations under difficult conditions,” the inquiry concluded.

It said that “commanders and forces made professional and responsible decisions, and fully exhausted negotiation efforts. The tank fire towards the area near the house was carried out professionally, with a joint decision made by commanders from all the security organizations after careful consideration… with the intent to apply pressure to the terrorists and save the civilians held hostage inside.”

“The team determined that, based on the information reviewed and to the best of their understanding, no civilians inside the building were harmed by tank shell fire, except for an isolated incident outside the building where two civilians were injured by shrapnel,” it continued. “The team determined that most of the hostages were likely murdered by the terrorists, and further inquiries and reviews of additional findings are necessary.”

Regarding the conclusions, Halevi said, “In such events, the commander on the ground must make difficult decisions with the goal of saving as many civilians as possible. The inquiry revealed that this value guided the decision-making of the commanders on the ground during this event.”

IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said later Thursday that the IDF had been trying to carry out negotiations with Hamas but those failed.

“The decision to bombard the house was taken only after all options were exhausted and only after there were noises of shooting where there was a suspicion that the hostages were executed. Civilians were not killed by the tank fire. They were killed by the terrorists. There is only one incident in which we can say that one civilian was killed from shrapnel,” he said.