Pesi’s house in Kibbutz Bari haunts everyone who was here, inside and outside. He pursues the families of the murdered who long to know what caused their death, he pursues the warriors who fought there and are unable to forget. Pesi’s house became one of the prominent symbols of the failure on October 7: 13 hostages were killed here, only two escaped alive – and for five months now the question has been echoing: were the hostages killed by an IDF tank?
Yesterday (Friday) evening we revealed new evidence and documents that have not been seen before: what happened during the dramatic hours of the negotiations with the terrorists, the surrender of the commander of the Nuh’ba force – and the reason that in the end the event ended only following a tank shell was fired at the house, and the death of the hostages.
“We heard screams and started walking towards”
“I was sitting at home, I drank coffee, I didn’t turn on the TV, I heard the booms and realized that something was not normal, and then my wife brought me a uniform and I quickly left for Bari,” recalled Col. Shlomo Perienta, “Every night I wake up at two o’clock, and I operate until four Again and once more what happened to me. And it really suffocates me, this house suffocates me.”
Col. Bam Parintah lives far from Bari, in the settlement of Adora. On the morning of October 7, he receives a call from his cousin, a resident of the kibbutz, who calls him to come and help. When he arrives in Bari, he joins the Sheldag team that is fighting the terrorists who overran the kibbutz. And waits, occasionally turns and hides.”
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In the wee hours his cousin writes to him to come to the dining room area, near which many hostages are being held. “We heard screams, me and Shladag’s force, we started walking in that direction.” Dozens of Hamas terrorists barricaded themselves in Pasi Cohen’s house with 15 hostages they collected from nearby houses. Six of them were held in the yard of the house, two were forced – and another nine inside the house.
Simulation of the location of the hostages in the house of Psi in Bari, the commander of Division 99, Brigadier General Barak Hiram | Photo: IDF spokesman
“Crazy fire strike, like in the books”
“Suddenly a terrorist rises up here. And I recognize two people tied up,” he recalls and tells regarding the hostages. “I remembered that there were two or three lying like that, tied up. I shoot the terrorist and then two more rise up here, I raise the Negev – I released a bunch. The whole area starts to make a very serious noise – RPG, shots, bunches.”
“I hang up and lie down because a car is just passing us and it’s catching fire, it’s already clear to me that it’s the IMM, and then I hear a grenade. I saw the amount of blood, I realized that I was hit in the head. Then they pull me back quickly.” Near the house he repeats: “There were a lot of YMM men here. He bandaged me and we entered here from the back.”
“I saw the amount of blood, I realized that I was hurt.” Shlomo Perintah following the injury in Bari
It is already four in the followingnoon when the Israeli army positions itself in front of the house and returns fire on the terrorists. They still do not know how many hostages are there – and that some of them are outside the house, exposed to fire. NT shooting. I look up and see in the corner one of the IMM men firing a shot, I think towards the ‘left’ side of the house. Then he fired another shot, and then I suddenly recognize two of the IMM.”
Y. is a fighter in the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s negotiation team, a unique force that is called upon to manage extreme events in which hostages are held. So far he has not spoken, but now he explains: “The people of Kibbutz Bari need a moment to get answers, they need to hear exactly what happened. As someone who was there from the beginning of the event to the end of the event, I am testifying here from my point of view – what I saw, what I heard, and what I experienced in my feelings.” And he repeats: “We arrived at the dining room, which is in front of Pesi’s house, and there they actually opened fire on us like crazy. Fire strike like in the books. It was a truly apocalyptic event.”
The moment when the commander of the Nuh’ba force surrendered
A, Y’s teammate, also speaks for the first time, recalling: “Shortly following we arrived, we see a terrorist with a hostage, completely naked, coming in our direction.” In the photos that were revealed for the first time in “Olan Shishi” we can see the moment of the capture of the commander of the Nuh’ba force, Hassan Hamduna, a moment following he leaves the house naked on the order of the IMM, next to the hostage Yasmin Porat – with A who interrogated him to his right.
The documentation that was revealed for the first time: the commander of the Nuh’ba force leaves Pasi’s house naked
What do you think made him come out?
A: “One, the satisfaction that he just did his thing – he also said that – and the realization that he wanted a moment to live. To think that just minutes before this terrorist murdered many Jews – I remember my hand on his shoulder and I say, how can you To touch him at all? But at that moment it served us. In his investigation we were so focused on a goal, so with a desire to save the hostages, and just shocked by this day. There were not many thoughts on this day.”
V. adds: “We took Yasmin and sat her aside for a moment and began questioning her – mainly how many hostages are inside, how many terrorists, types of weapons, ammunition.” A says: “We understand that there are 40 terrorists and Y insists with her – ‘Are you sure? 40 terrorists?’ And she tells him ‘yes’.”
She left the house with the commander of the Nuh’ba force. The hostage Yasmin Porat
Did you realize that there are six hostages outside the house exposed to fire?
“No. I didn’t understand that,” Y’ answers. At this stage, A and another fighter, A., succeed in urging the terrorist Hassan Hamdona to cooperate with them: “We decided to use a terrorist who will announce directly to his friends, and Hassan is literally shouting at the Nuh’ba men who are inside the house to surrender,” emphasizes A.
And in the documentation published tonight, Hamdona is seen shouting: “Guys, get out. Get out. They will treat you well. Look at me, I got out safe and sound and here they are taking care of me and taking care of me. Come on, guys, get out – everyone, even those who are injured or In any situation, go out and undress, the army will receive you and take care of you.”
Can you tell if they heard you?
Y: “We assume they heard us, we don’t know for sure.”
The commander of the Nuh’ba force announces to the terrorists in Pasi’s house following surrendering: “The army will accept you and take care of you”
The damaged tank and the order to fire a warning shot
Eight kilometers from Pesi’s house, fierce battles are taking place in the Nova party near Reim. One of the officers who was in the field, Major General Nissim Hazan, locates a tank on the spot that was hit by gunfire and caught fire. At half past four, Nissim Hazan’s tank arrives in Bari and positions itself in front of Pesi’s house. The goal: to make the terrorists understand that it is no longer just them once morest the YMM team.
Y. recalls: “We were with M-16 and they were also with clutches but also with machine guns and with charges and with RPG. And it was decided, and I don’t know by whom, to bring a tank.”
To try to produce some kind of superiority over them?
“Truth”.
Commanded the damaged tank that came from the party area. Col. Nissim Hazan
And Parente says: “I recognize the noise of the tank’s caterpillars. Now, for me as an infantryman, and certainly at 7.10 when I hear a tank, I get a very strong wind. I was very happy that he came.”
“The tank commander comes down and he says: ‘OK, what are we doing? What’s going on,'” recalled Y. from the negotiation team in the meeting with Nissim Hazan. “I remember being told to him, ‘Listen, we need you to fire a warning shot, because you are a tie ‘. The tankman says: ‘Okay, I got it’, and got on the tank. They heard an explosion, right following the tank fired there was some sort of silence for a second and a half, then the terrorists continued to fire once more,” and his friend A concludes: “It had no effect.”
The tank arrives near Pesi’s house in Bari
All this time Brigadier General Barak Hiram, commander of Division 99, who promoted himself to manage the sector, was in the PAK stationed at Shaari Bari. “He came in, got a moment’s review from the Navy, realized for a moment what was happening,” Y. describes the chain of events. “In the whole area there is crazy shooting, 360 degrees of massive shooting, we are capturing RPGs from every direction. It made it very difficult for the ficus, we’ll call it that.”
Va. recounts: “A man from the emergency department came to us and begged: ‘I have friends here, family who are right in the nearby houses. Come with me to save them. I told him, ‘Come, I’ll go with you,’ he says, ‘How will we both go? The area is infested with terrorists.’ “.
“We go into the dark and the event only gets worse”
The hours pass and the shooting from the house and the neighboring houses continues. The tank fires a second deterrent shell, but the terrorists at Pesi’s house do not surrender. “At around 6:30 in the evening another negotiation team joined us and he also tried to prod for a moment,” emphasizes Y. “There was no response. We realize that we are entering the dark and that the event is only getting worse. It’s not that the fire stopped or that the amount of fire from the house decreased, but the opposite – it just increased and increased and increased. Going into the night when the event is not held is a great danger, especially because if the terrorists wanted to, they would have left the eastern part without being seen and might have continued to slaughter everyone who passed there.”
“This house suffocates me.” Colonel in the mail Shlomo Perintah
“I also heard harsh and loud arguments here between the negotiators and the ideologues, and those who were here, the commanders who were here,” explains Parintah. According to the version of the negotiation team member J., “There was thinking regarding whether or not it was possible to transfer a few more hours – but this is an event that was cut in the end. Barak stood with us and said: ‘Well, guys, we need to close this event.'”
The reason for Brigadier General Hiram’s decision is revealed
This is the most decisive moment that turned the Pesi house affair into an event that accompanies us to this day – and delays the appointment of Barak Hiram as commander of the Gaza Division. After four hours of fighting, Hiram ordered the IMM to carry out a “breakout” and end the incident. “The first shells were in the grass in front of the house, the last shell was in the tiles of the house, it was not in the ‘dining room’ itself,” said Y’ (pseudonym ), a fighter who was in a tank.
Immediately following the shell is fired, the IDF forces try to break into it, and the voices of a female hostage are heard from inside the house. A shootout ensues at the entrance, several fighters are wounded, others manage to rescue the late Chava Ben Ami with her last breaths: the house begins to catch fire and there is no more left Who to rescue, except Hadas Dagan.
When this event ended, did you understand the condition of the hostages who were in the house?
Y: “No. I understood two days later, I think. The result is very difficult. Very painful, that’s the word.”
Tonight we revealed that the request to fire the tank shell into the roof of the house was from the Navy to allow the fighters to carry out the break-in: that is, not to take time as in other hostage incidents but to break into the house, according to Barak Hiram’s testimony in the New York Times – even at the cost of Damage to civilians. It is important to emphasize: the tank did not fire aimed at the center of the house. The photographs prove that the shell hit the upper part, on its right side: as a result, part of the roof collapsed on the hostages.
The documentation that proves the impact of the shell on the top of Pesi’s house
And Parenta says to the side of the house that he doesn’t let go: “We don’t shoot at a house with hostages, alive. Nothing will help. Not a roof, not shoes. We don’t shoot.” On a tour inside the building, he admits: “Sometimes I cry, at night, alone. I remember this whole stupid movie, and I don’t understand where we got to. It broke all my trust in the army today.”
What did you do wrong in this event?
Y’: “I can tell in retrospect what we might have done better. If he hadn’t given that order and terrorists would have managed to get out of Pesi’s house and continue to massacre the kibbutz, then they might have come forward with a claim and said – why didn’t they break in by force? That is, a question of in retrospect”.
Aerial documentation of the tank shooting in Bari from 7.10
A: “The forces did everything they might to try and rescue the hostages. We were not superior forces in this incident. If there were any forces in the entire kibbutz in excess quantities, it would have been possible to manage it for perhaps longer hours.”
Y., a fighter from the tank team, shares: “I walked around thinking – what am I like, a murderer? I had the thought that you came to do your best and protect the settlement and in retrospect it turns out that you killed civilians.”
Some of the hostages, mainly those who were outside, were injured by the exchange of gunfire between the two sides and by the shell of the tank. The question mark that still remains – and may never be clear – is what caused the death of those who were inside the house?
Research: Yael Yaffe
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