The IDF probe of the battle of Be’eri on October 7 has cleared Brig.-Gen. Barak Hiram, commander of the 99th Division, of allegations that he ordered the killing of hostages who were mixed in with Hamas terrorists.
Despite being cleared, due to reasons which the IDF did not explain, Hiram’s future IDF career options are still frozen at this time, with no set date for when that issue will be resolved.
For nine months, the narrative against Hiram has been that in the Pesi Cohen household in Be’eri, a group of Hamas terrorists were both holding hostages as well as presenting a significant danger to IDF forces who were trying to liberate the kibbutz from Hamas’s control.
It was alleged that given an impossible choice over whether to continue to allow the Hamas forces to present a danger and given few clear-cut options for rescuing the hostages, that he ordered a tank to fire on the house, destroying it and killing everyone inside, terrorists and hostages alike.
Prior to October 7, Hiram was viewed as one of the IDF’s rising stars and was slated to take over the once prized Gaza Division, a post which is often a stepping stone to top high command positions, and could even lead to becoming IDF chief.
Further, Hiram’s 99th Division has been viewed as fighting extremely effectively in several rounds of battles in Gaza since October 7.
However, because of the Cohen household incident and the probe into the circumstances, his promotion had been frozen, and there was even a possibility that he could face disciplinary measures or worse.
Significant portions of Be’eri residents have also loudly opposed his promotion.
In contrast, the IDF probe found that Hiram was not even present when the tank in question fired on the Cohen house.
Further, the probe found that four tank shells were fired, all with the intent of being near misses that would put pressure on the Hamas terrorists to intimidate them into surrendering, but not to kill either the Hamas forces or the hostages.
The timeline of events
The first tank shell was fired at 5:23 p.m. on the orders of Shin Bet and senior YAMAM police commanders trained for handling hostage situations.
Hiram only arrived at the scene 37 minutes later at 6:00 p.m.
At 6:27 p.m., the tank fired a second time near the house, but still without intent to hit it.
At 6:32 p.m., Hamas forces called the Israeli security forces, saying that they were going to commit suicide and kill all of their hostages.
Subsequently, a third shell was fired and around 6:45 p.m. a fourth shell was then fired, this time with the goal to strike the top of the house, in some area above where the hostages were being kept, but it misfired and struck a lower point, causing damage to parts of the house.
The IDF also believes that glass from just outside of the house broke as part of the explosion from the fourth shell and killed two hostages who were being held there, though the military said it did not believe that the shell directly killed them based on an analysis of the broken glass.
The military said that its visual intelligence, both aerial and from forces nearby on the ground, did not give it a 100% view of the area and so it did not know that some of the hostages were being held just outside the house.
In the following hour, YAMAM, IDF, and Shin Bet forces directed a takeover of the house based on information – including testimony from one of the hostages outside before she was killed – that other hostages had been killed already even before the fourth shell.
Gun fights continued with additional destruction of the house, to the point that, according to the IDF, it became more difficult to discern exactly what actions had caused what damage to it.
Limited visual evidence
Moreover, the IDF said that it does not have 100% evidence that Hamas killed the hostages before the fourth shell or before the attacks by Israeli security forces.
According to the military, this is because both security forces and the ZAKA unit that clears bodies did not maintain the forensics of the bodies properly in terms of being able to check whether they had fatal gunshot wounds or stabbings.
One implication was that the bodies could also have been further damaged by the shelling and Israeli attacks, though in that case, the damage would be unintentional to dead bodies and not to live hostages.
The IDF concluded that the hostage situation occurring on a wild and live battlefield was unprecedented and that, under the unique circumstances, none of the officials involved, including Hiram, had made any errors.