The Israelis faced difficulty identifying Hamas fighters, prompting pilots to use artillery against fighters.
- IDF helicopter “accidentally” shoots down festival-goers amid attacks: report.
- Haaretz The report challenges the established Israeli narrative.
- The report claims that Hamas has instructed its fighters to mingle with the crowd,
A recent report from Haaretz The newspaper revealed that during Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, an Israeli military helicopter hit festival-goers while engaging Palestinian fighters.
The Israeli security assessment, based on police investigations with the arrested Hamas gunmen, suggested that the attackers had no prior knowledge of the festival being held near Kibbutz Reim, close to the Gaza border.
During the attack, Israeli forces encountered difficulty identifying Hamas fighters, prompting helicopter pilots to use artillery against the festival participants. Reports indicate that Hamas instructed its fighters to blend in with the crowd, trying to trick the air force into believing they were Israeli.
“Hamas terrorists were instructed to slowly blend into the crowd and not to move forward under any circumstances,” the newspaper said in its report.
“This way, they tried to make the Air Force believe that the people down there were Israelis. This deception continued to work until the Apache helicopters were freed from all restrictions. The pilots found it difficult to identify who was a terrorist and who was an Israeli,” the report said.
Contrary to the official Israeli narrative, which claimed that Hamas gunmen deliberately targeted and killed festival-goers, the investigation refutes this account.
Haaretz The report challenges the established Israeli narrative and highlights the complexities faced by Israeli forces in separating combatants from civilians during conflict situations.
The incident resulted in casualties among festival-goers, highlighting the tragic consequences of such mistaken identity amid the ongoing hostilities between Israel and Palestinian groups.
