The first police investigation into the Supernova festival also found that Israeli forces were responsible for some of the deaths.
Hamas militants who attacked a music festival in Israel on October 7, killing hundreds of people, probably did not know about the event in advance and decided to attack on the spot, Israeli media reported, citing police and security sources.
According to a copy of the first Israeli police report on the attack, obtained this week by Israel’s Channel 12, Palestinian militants originally intended to attack nearby Kibbutz Re’im, as well as other villages near the Gaza border. They learned about the music festival from drones and from the air, parachuting into Israel.
Israeli authorities said about 4,400 people attended the event on Saturday when Hamas broke through Israel’s high-security barrier, which includes a radar system and underground sensors, and attacked military posts and villages in southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians. .
That Saturday, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that “a growing assessment by the Israeli security establishment” based on police investigations and interrogations of captured Hamas members indicates that the group had no plans to attack the event.
Although police found target location maps on the bodies of slain Hamas members, none indicated the location of the festival. According to Haaretz, an additional finding supporting this assessment was that Hamas fighters did not approach the festival from the border, but from a nearby highway.
Additionally, the event was originally scheduled to take place on Thursday and Friday, with Saturday only being added to the program on Tuesday this week.
The report also shows that most festival goers had already left the event by the time Hamas showed up and began the massacre.
“The vast majority [people who were at the event] managed to escape after the decision to disperse the event was made four minutes after the rocket attack,” says a senior police source quoted by Haaretz.
The police investigation also found that an Israeli military helicopter opened fire on the attackers, but also hit some people present at the festival. As reported by Haaretz, no further details were provided.
“The investigation into the incident revealed that approx [Israeli military] The attack helicopter that arrived at the scene from the Ramat David base fired at the terrorists and apparently also hit some of the revelers there,” the press report quoted an anonymous police officer as saying.
The police report also revised the death toll from the attack from 270 to 364, including 17 police officers. The number of kidnapped festival participants was 40.
According to Palestinian health authorities, in response to the Hamas attacks, Israel launched a ground and air attack on the Gaza Strip that killed more than 12,000 Palestinians, including 5,000 children. Much of the Gaza Strip lies in ruins, and the total blockade imposed by Israel on the territory has left its inhabitants unable to obtain enough food, water, fuel and medical supplies, all of which are now at critically low levels.
