The IDF probe on Hamas’s invasion of the Netiv HaAsara, in which 14 civilians and three security team members were killed, was issued on Tuesday. No hostages were taken.
According to the probe, Hamas penetrated the village by 6:39 a.m., even faster than in many other border villages. They immediately started killing civilians.
This more rapid penetration was a product of Netiv HaAsara being only 100 meters from Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya at the Gaza border as well as Hamas using hang gliders to fly into the village without having to fast much resistance, though some Israeli security forces did try to fire on them as they passed over.
The first altercation between security teams and invaders was only at 7:07 a.m., with one terrorist being killed, but the others continuing to kill civilians. One more terrorist was also killed later.
Other invaders came in cars.
In all, there were only a few dozen invaders at Netiv HaAsara and for much of the time, Israeli forces and security teams actually outnumbered the invaders at any given moment by around 30 versus five to eight invaders.
However, the rapid penetration, poor Israeli coordination and the lack of electricity for Israeli communications meant that even the small number of Hamas invaders managed to kill significant numbers of Israeli civilians.
Timeline: How Hamas invaded Netiv HaAsara
The first wave of invaders went from roughly 6:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., with their being zero Hamas forces in the village for some period of time after 8:30 a.m., but the number of invaders in a second wave steadily increasing to around seven by 12:47 p.m.
Around 11:30 a.m., IDF reinforcements started to arrive.
From 12:14 p.m. to 12:47 p.m., additional Gaza invaders not connected with any organization penetrated the village, but were caught and arrested. Three other invaders from the group escaped.
From 5:15 p.m. to 7:15 p.m., all of the residents were evacuated by IDF forces, which included battalion 77, the paratroopers, and the Golani Brigade.
In one rare case where the Air Force tried to take the initiative based on pre-war intelligence and to attack without concrete real-time updated intelligence, it attacked a tunnel at 7:15 a.m. which officers thought Hamas might use to send fighters into Netiv HaAsara.
This was the first Air Force attack on Hamas of the war.
It turned out later that no Hamas fighters had been there.
Generally, the Air Force did not arrive in the Gaza Corridor villages in time to help or was ineffective in interventions until around 10:30 a.m., when it at least started to rapid fire on any new Gazans trying to cross the border into Israel.
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