An Israeli military investigation released Tuesday describes how small groups of soldiers at Yiftach Camp and the Erez Control Center fought against waves of Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, preventing the bases from being captured even as 13 troops were killed.
The yearlong probe, led by Col. (res.) Yaron Sitbon, found that both bases were largely manned by support troops — including drivers, cooks and logistics personnel — with few combat soldiers present. Despite being untrained to withstand a large-scale invasion, they managed to stall Hamas forces for hours, saving nearby communities from a wider massacre.
The first clashes
According to the investigation, the first alarm came when Golani fighters Capt. Itay Maor, Sgt. Ori Locker and Sgt. Amit Tsur, from the 51st Battalion, were on a routine patrol in a David jeep near the northern Gaza border. They received a warning about a breach attempt at reporting point 12 and rushed to the scene, arriving as a tank from the 77th Battalion was taking position.
At that moment, two Hamas terrorists tried to blow open the fence to allow a Nukhba company to infiltrate Netiv HaAsara. The Golani fighters opened fire, stopping the breach. Only three terrorists ultimately managed to enter the community, but they carried out a deadly rampage.
The three soldiers then raced toward Zikim after reports of gunfire. Their jeep drove into an ambush by dozens of terrorists who had arrived from the sea. The Golani fighters dismounted, took cover inside training huts at the firing range and fought at close range, killing many attackers. The probe found they fought “to the last bullet in their magazines” before being overrun and killed, diverting much of the terrorist force away from nearby bases.
Meanwhile, the 77th Battalion tank crew that had fired earlier tried to rescue a stuck armored personnel carrier, but came under heavy fire from dozens of Hamas fighters. The tank commander was shot, and the gunner took his place to keep firing. Some terrorists seized an abandoned IDF jeep and drove it, nearly causing deadly friendly fire hours later when Israeli forces mistook it for enemy use.
The battle for Erez base
At the Erez Control Center, a small joint base of the navy and a Golani unit, the situation was no less desperate. The entire base that Saturday morning was under the command of a sergeant. When the opening rocket barrage shook the compound, most soldiers ran to shelters.
Staff Sgt. Ofir Zioni, a Golani squad commander, acted differently. He sprinted toward the shoreline and spotted a motorboat loaded with terrorists speeding from Gaza. He opened fire, preventing it from reaching the Israeli coast. Realizing that terrorists were converging on the base from multiple directions, he circled back and took up a position near the shelter, killing attackers until he was shot and killed. His stand bought critical time and prevented the outpost from being overrun.
His comrades, including support troops, continued fighting inside the base. Under fire, relatives of some of the base’s cooks drove to the scene and evacuated wounded soldiers in their private cars, braving heavy shooting on the road from Zikim to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon.
Yiftach Camp under siege
At Yiftach Camp, less than a kilometer from the Gaza border, the situation was equally dire. Cpl. Naama Boni, a welfare NCO, was alone at the front gate when rockets hit at 6:29 a.m. She phoned her family as explosions shook the compound.
Staff Sgt. Ido Harush, a tank crewman, ran from shelter dressed only in sports clothes to help her. Together with three other soldiers carrying only their rifles, they held the gate against waves of terrorists. Lt. Yoav Malayev, a communications officer on weekend duty, soon joined them.
During the battle, Sergeant Nathanel Young of the security response team ran straight into the line of fire to protect his base and his comrades and was killed.
The on-duty officer directed the battalion command center to order all armed soldiers to report to the gate. The operations sergeant relayed the command over the public address system. Following the order, Sergeant Ilay Bar Sadeh left his post and ran to the gate. At that moment, two more terrorist squads arrived, bringing the total to roughly 18 attackers.
For 15 minutes, the group held their ground, firing at terrorists who kept advancing with heavier weapons. Boni reported their situation nonstop over her phone to nearby units and Magen David Adom. But as ammunition ran out and shrapnel wounds mounted, the defenders were overwhelmed. Harush and Boni were killed at close range.
The standby squad commander ordered Sergeant Ilay Bar Sadeh and Corporal Naama Bonny to fall back to a rear position. Sergeant Bar Sadeh refused to leave Bonny and stayed at the post to fight, where he was killed by terrorist fire.
Malayev ran back to the command post and shouted over loudspeakers: “Anyone with a weapon, get to the gate immediately.” According to the probe, 10 combat engineers heard the call, but only a small group left shelter and briefly joined the fight before retreating. The rest chose to remain inside, a decision the army later described as “unworthy and a professional failure.”
As fighting intensified, terrorists stormed through the gate after an armored ambulance evacuated the wounded and broke open the entrance. One injured Israeli soldier, seeing the attackers try to carry away the body of a comrade, fired his last rounds to prevent the abduction before collapsing.
Malayev returned to the gate to keep firing, but was struck by a bullet. Before dying, he scrawled a note: “These were the best 20 minutes of my life. Now I crawl.”
Holding the line
By midday, about 30 Hamas terrorists armed with RPGs, heavy machine guns and hundreds of magazines were inside Yiftach Camp. The last gunman was killed by 1 p.m., but full control of the base was restored only by 5 p.m., after reinforcements from the 77th Battalion and senior commanders arrived.
Elsewhere, a female lookout operating a remote-controlled heavy machine gun spotted terrorists fleeing in a stolen Humvee and opened fire, killing them before they could return to Gaza.
In total, nine Israeli soldiers were killed at Yiftach, and four more — including Maor, Locker, Tsur and Zioni — fell at Erez and Zikim.
“The swift arrival and determined fighting of the 77th Battalion prevented the enemy from capturing Yiftach Camp,” Sitbon wrote in the report. “The arrival of additional commanders stopped further infiltration.” He added that the conduct of the engineering troops “constituted both a professional and ethical failure.”
Despite the failures, the probe concluded that the courage of a few soldiers prevented an even greater catastrophe.