Israel appoints brigadier general in charge of defending Kibbutz Beeri as Gaza commander on October 7

An Army report mentioned his mistakes without investigating them and highlighted his arrival at the kibbutz to “turn things around”

Jul 31. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Israeli military has named Brigadier General Barak Hiram as the new commander of the Gaza Division, replacing Brigadier General Avi Rosenfeld, who announced his resignation last month over his role in the failures that led to the October 7 attacks by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), which left 1,200 people dead and 240 hostages.

“(Hiram) will be the next commander of the Gaza Division, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi has decided. Hiram, the current commander of the 99th Division, had been proposed as the next commander of the Gaza Division before the war. The decision was put on hold due to the fighting in Gaza and Hiram’s participation in the Battle of Kibbutz Beeri during the October 7 attack,” the IDF said in a statement.

They stressed that the Army’s internal investigation into the aforementioned battle exonerated Hiram of all blame, and that he will finish his current duties in the coming days, although no specific date has been set for his inauguration as the new commander of the Gaza Division.

In the aforementioned report, the army acknowledged its failure to protect the residents of Kibbutz Beeri. It is worth noting that Hiram ordered the firing on a house where 14 hostages were being held, leading to a shootout that left 13 of them dead. The report only mentions his “mistakes” without going into them, and stresses that his appointment to command the sector represented a “turnaround” in the situation at a time of chaos within the IDF ranks.

Some 340 Palestinian militants – at least 100 from Hamas – took over a large part of the kibbutz, killing 101 civilians and kidnapping 30 people, making Beeri one of the hardest hit by the attacks on October 7, and where it is expected that it will take a long time for the community to recover from the “serious damage” suffered.