Only now, after more than 100 days, they feel the time has come to tell what happened on the morning of October 7th at the Sufa outpost. The outpost that became a death trap. The fighters of the Nahal patrol were just before liberation. For most of them, this was supposed to be the last Shabbat in the army. We met 16 fighters who were there, they will take us into hell. And they also talk for the first time about the most difficult decisions they made there.
Mosvat Sufa is in the south of the Gaza Strip, in front of Rafah. His job is to guard the border and protect the three settlements of Sufa, Hulit and Nir Yitzhak. At the end of August, the fighters of the Nahal Crow patrol take over the responsibility. There is a reinforced company here in a tank department and a mortar department.
“Everything is quiet, there is no mess, there is nothing serious going on. We were sure that the fence is what protects us,” they say.
Is there a feeling that someone can penetrate it at all?
“No. There’s no way.”
The Nahal fighters who fought the terrorists who broke into the storm
Half of the fighters go out at home
Sergeant in response to Matan, a crow fighter, Nahal patrol: “About two weeks before the incident, I was in the division and there they prepared us for the extreme scenario, one by one, what would happen, simply with 10, 12 terrorists in the top. And we say a kind of ‘let’s see them ‘”.
That Saturday, half of the fighters go home, like every weekend. In Hamas they learned exactly how our forces operate. At five in the morning the post wakes up for dawn alert. Then a volley. “We call it a barrage of terror, like a movie,” says Matan. “Hundreds of missiles, IEDs falling in front of us,” describes Sergeant Bam’l Shmulik, Crow Warrior, Nahal Patrol.
Lieutenant Rotem, team commander in Orav: “We are both sleeping in the same room in the officers’ quarters when suddenly we hear booms. Realizing that something strange is happening, we quickly get on B, take our weapons and run to the protected area.”
The late Roy Chappel, the MP immediately realizes that a special event is unfolding here and divides everyone into sections and says “everything you see, you will eliminate”.
Lieutenant Amir, team commander in Orav: “I receive a call from the MP, I hear already at this stage that he is very upset. He tells me, ‘Amir, armed men are crossing the fence.’ I don’t understand how much, I don’t understand if it’s in our sector or in the northern sector.”
They go on heightened alert, at first there was still a report from the lookout about a suspicious approach to the fence, until the moment the lookout says “I don’t have a camera”. They hear on the phone that terrorists have crossed the fence in the Sufa area and begin to receive fire. They don’t even imagine that there are terrorists who have reached the outpost, but at this stage the outpost is already surrounded.
A photo from a body camera of Hamas terrorists
They realize they are surrounded
“Then I see four vans and full of bikers flying. And they start shooting at them.” says Amir, the senior officer at the outpost. He hears this shooting and goes up to the observation post, to see what is happening beyond the walls. He still doesn’t understand that the terrorists are already here.
They realize they are surrounded. It’s still not seven in the morning and this is the picture at the outpost: in the front SHG is the standby force, they have their first wounded. Inside the base the rest of the soldiers are organizing for combat. In the rear SHG the mortar fighters absorb the heaviest attack.
Sergeant Eshel, a fighter in the 50th Battalion, the Nahal Brigade: “As soon as I got to the position, they started shooting at us and then I immediately got a bullet in the neck, and then I fell and suffocated like that.”
Sergeant Amit, a fighter in the 50th Battalion: “I received a bullet that entered the bone, came out and crushed it, and here, in such a head. Listen, it doesn’t hurt. The adrenaline and that just made it not painful, you keep fighting.”
Sergeant Shmulik, a crow fighter: “Suddenly I see a convoy of about 12 motorcycles, with clutches and with RPGs and things.” At first he even thought it was kibbutzniks out for a walk.
The Nahal fighters who fought the terrorists who broke into the storm
The hardest decision in life
The terrorists travel to Kibbutz Holit. “We are receiving massive fire. As they are driving to the kibbutz, we told the driver to drive fast to the Shoal of Holit, to overtake them. We are literally driving parallel to them, and while doing so they are shooting at us,” says Shmulik.
At this point the battle is already being fought on three fronts. At the entrance to Kibbutz Holit, the battle with the terrorists continued. But Matan’s power is at a severe numerical disadvantage against him.
Sergeant Roni: “A terrorist aimed an RPG at me, I caught fire. I hear Chappell say I took a bullet.” Ronnie drags Chappell, then Ronnie is shot in the leg – and no one answers him about it.
Meanwhile at the entrance to Kibbutz Holit the battle continues. For the most important battle in their lives as fighters, they arrived with six cartridges, a weapon and a means of dispersing demonstrations.
Matan: “I knew I was going to die. I knew, knowingly. I just said I would take as much as possible with me. And then I actually get a phone call from the KPK MP, ‘Matan, I’m here alone, we received an RPG, There are more terrorists here, come save me.'”
“You look at a dune, you still see the terrorists inside. You actually leave civilians when there are terrorists inside a kibbutz. There is no more difficult decision than this. But I also manage the risks and I understand that if I stay here another two minutes I myself will explode. And I decide to hang up. Back to the outpost A storm,” describes Matan.
The Nahal fighters who fought the terrorists who broke into the storm
The terrorists break into the outpost
In the Sofa outpost, the Hamas attack is increasing, in the front SHG there are four fighters and one wounded. In the rear SHG, the mortar fighters are absorbing heavy fire. They extricate themselves with many injuries into the outpost.
Bullets whistling inside the outpost. He is under attack from three directions. In this small room next to the rear guardhouse, two medics treat three seriously wounded. Then… “Allahu Akbar!” – the terrorists manage to break through the gate and the fighters barricade themselves in the dining room ready for the final battle for the outpost.
Matan’s team arrives at the injured Roni. They are fighting from trenches near the monument in the outpost. The ground explodes near them.
Shmulik: “Suddenly boom, I got… I got the bullet. The bullet hit me under my armpit, I looked at the sky and the sprays keep coming out, I feel the life draining out of me. And I feel such calmness, peace, such love, literally coming out of my body. Suddenly all My life was running out, the whole life of my family. And as I thought about my family, it brought me back to my body. And I realize that I can save my life. I shout to Tamno: ‘Tamano, put a CAT on me’ (artery occluder), I’m going to die ‘”.
The Nahal fighters who fought the terrorists who broke into the storm
The siege is getting tighter
Matan receives a phone call and is assigned to a sector commander, he puts the phone in his pocket and receives a shrapnel in the neck. From the monument where they are, they can now see how the outpost was washed away by terrorists. Inside, all the surviving Nahal forces are concentrated in the protected dining room. The wounded lie in the back and their harness together with another warrior stood bravely in the doorway.
Rotem: “I see the terrorists with my eyes, 4-5 meters from me. We shoot. And every few minutes they throw a grenade inside you. You hear the grenade and you see it roll near you. You feel like it’s going to kill you. It explodes, a loud boom, but there was I have this feeling that if I leave the door, neither I nor the person I’m with will probably get out alive.”
In the besieged dining room at those hours, the wounded in the back, those who can fight return fire, and the terrorists continue to roll grenades inside.
Rotem: “At a certain point one of the grenades exploded right next to me and my whole right leg was covered in shrapnel. One of the fighters put a tourniquet on me and they continued.”
This is the situation three hours into the fighting. In the front headquarters the fighters still manage to fortify themselves, but they have no ability to launch a counterattack from there. They reach a situation where they have the last cartridge, there is no shooting, they have to be economical. There are already five dead and six wounded in the monument. The remaining force takes shelter on the upper floor. There are no cartridges, There is no water. These are the most difficult hours. They are alone without assistance, and the siege is getting tighter.
Eshel: “The terrorists are shouting all kinds of chants at us in Hebrew, ‘Raise your hands, surrender’.” And the grenades don’t stop.
Rotem: “I also got shrapnel all over my body there. I fall on the floor with a weapon, a pool of blood under me. It’s like I’m just waiting for the terrorist to come and deliver a bullet and that’s it.”
Amit: “One of the grenades exploded, I felt that my body was burning, that I was literally on fire.”
The terrorists also manage to blow up the back door of the dining room. The fighters inside manage to block their entry this time as well, but it’s getting harder and harder. At half past one in the afternoon an Air Force combat helicopter arrives.
The Nahal fighters who fought the terrorists who broke into the storm
The helicopter fires at the outpost
The terrorists roam freely in the outpost, the soldiers barricade themselves in the dining room. The helicopter fires at the outpost from the air. Everything inside is shaking.
Amit: “You understand that it is close and you understand that it is possible that you will get out of here alive.”
At half past two in the afternoon, helicopters landed to evacuate the wounded from the monument, and then the fighters of the fleet broke into the outpost. It took them three hours to clear the entire area of the terrorists and return control to the IDF.
Three and a half months later, we built with them to the Sufa outpost. This is the first time they are returning to the outpost that has undergone renovations, and maybe the plaster and paint will be able to cover the wounds.
“There is a smell of death here, man, in this place,” they say. Walking around there for a long time, looking for something to remember, maybe they were also looking for who they were before that day.
The Nahal fighters who fought the terrorists who broke into the storm
Three months later, how do you look at it?
Amir: “I think it’s difficult to look at such an event with a sense of pride, but I think that many of us are very happy with what happened there.”
Rotem: “In the end the residents were hurt, which was the task of the entire sector. But you did the best you could at that moment. We were there one hundred percent.”
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