In 2014, the objective of the Israeli army in its Operation Protective Edge – the bloodiest confrontation to date, with some 2,200 Palestinian deaths and 71 Israelis – was to end the Hamas military tunnels, which caused terror among the around 20,000 inhabitants of the Gaza environment. A year later, an officer at the Kerem Shalom crossing, where goods and humanitarian aid entered the strip in dribs and drabs, said that the objective was being achieved, blocking tunnels, installing sensors, creating underground barriers…
The Negev Desert extends in front of this pass at the confluence of Israel, Egypt and Gaza itself, and to the north. Along most of Israel’s 60-kilometer fenced perimeter, the Sufa, Karni and Nahal Oz passes have been closed since Hamas took control of the strip in 2007. Kisufim, east of the urban agglomeration Khan Yunis, remained for the exclusive use of the Israeli army in its raids. In the south, two passes in Rafah connect with Egypt, and in the north, only one, Erez, with Israel. Gaza, 365 square kilometers (more than half of the metropolitan area of ??Barcelona) is something similar to a rectangle of about 43 kilometers from north to south, about 14 in its widest part and five in the narrowest (relative data, taking into account (Israeli security margin counts). Hamas, lacking tunnels, has done the unimaginable this time: attacking on the surface. There are those who believe that the 2018 protests, the “return marches”, held on a “Friday of Rage” in which some 20,000 young people participated (resulting in some 200 deaths and 29,000 injuries in one year) in front of the barrier border, they served Hamas to take control of the Israeli military bases in the Negev. But it’s possible that they didn’t need it.
Few details are known about what happened on October 7. At 5:50 a.m. local time, Hamas showed on Telegram images of five motorcycles (two men on each) crossing the wire fence in Kerem Shalom; An excavator immediately widened the hole. The image was far from evoking the blowing up of the metal fence in Rafah, in 2008, to allow Gazans to leave for Egypt in the face of the suffocating Israeli commercial and energy blockade. Nor did it resemble what would soon happen in Erez.
The Erez crossing – intended for the transit of people, such as Gazan workers who cross to Israel, foreign aid workers and journalists on occasion, and some vehicles – has been a small Israeli fortress since Hamas rules Gaza. A painful maze of long tunnels, doors with turnstiles that made it very difficult to pass luggage, other narrow doors with intercoms and cameras, all monitored by soldiers from a kind of control tower.
The elite forces (nujba) of Hamas attacked it, but from the outside, once the southernmost fence was breached, right where Israeli troops usually break into the first town in Gaza, Beit Hanun. An anti-tank rocket apparently broke the concrete wall and the militants entered and shot at the soldiers.
By then, all attention was focused on the rain of missiles falling on Israel.
It is not clear whether the Ezedin al Qasam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, entered 15 sites or less, but they reached up to 27 Israeli enclaves over a maximum distance of 22.5 kilometers.
Just six kilometers from the strip, more or less at the height of the Kisufim Pass, the largest massacre took place. Some 260 young people attending a music festival were shot dead, and an unknown number of survivors were kidnapped.
Media such as the BBC have been able to determine from videos on social networks how, just before 6:30 a.m., the time when the missile launch began, those attending the Supernova festival were able to see perhaps up to seven flying devices. These were paramotors (paragliders, some single-seater, others two-seater, equipped with a motor) from the Falcon squadron of the Al Qasam Brigades. When everyone could see the missile trails in the sky, many ran towards the cars. But it was late. The militiamen had also arrived in trucks and motorcycles, and began shooting indiscriminately.
Did Hamas know that more than 3,000 people had gathered near KibbutzRe’im? Some witnesses believe so, because the location of the festival was secret when tickets were sold and was only communicated a few hours before. Others believe that the music was heard from the strip on the night of the 6th. From the paragliders they could clearly see the concentration, and perhaps guide the rest of the militiamen.
The trap in the desert was finally closed when, according to the Yediotnews portal, Hamas vehicles camouflaged as Israeli police blocked the roads of the Negev communities, and even seized real police cars and took them to Gaza.
