During initial police investigations into the Supernova festival, Israeli forces were also blamed for some deaths.
Hamas militants who attacked a music festival in Israel on October 7, killing hundreds, likely did not know about the event in advance and decided to target it immediately, Israeli media reported, citing police and security sources.
Palestinian militants had originally planned to attack nearby Kibbutz Re’im as well as other villages near the Gaza border, according to a copy of the first Israeli police report on the attack obtained by Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 this week. They learned about the music festival from drones and from the air as they parachuted into Israel.
About 4,400 people were reportedly at the event that Saturday when Hamas broke through Israel’s high-security barrier – which includes radar systems and underground sensors – and attacked military posts and villages in southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli authorities .
This Saturday, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the “growing assessment within the Israeli security apparatus,” based on police investigations and interrogations of captured Hamas members, is that the group had not planned to target the event.
While the police found maps of the destinations among the bodies of killed Hamas members, there was no information about the location of the festival. Another finding that supported the assessment, according to Haaretz, was that Hamas fighters approached the festival not from the border, but from a nearby highway.
In addition, the event was originally planned for Thursday and Friday, Saturday was only added to the program on Tuesday of this week.
The report also found that most festival-goers had managed to leave the event when Hamas showed up and the massacre began.
“The vast majority of [people who were at the event] He managed to escape after the decision was made to break up the event four minutes after the rocket attack,” said a senior police source quoted by Haaretz.
The police investigation also revealed that an Israeli military helicopter opened fire on the attackers, but also hit some festival goers. No further details were disclosed, Haaretz reported.
“An investigation into the incident revealed a [Israeli military] “The attack helicopter, which arrived at the scene from Ramat David base, fired at the terrorists and apparently also hit some of the revelers there,” the news report quoted an unnamed police official 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 visitors was put at 40.
In response to Hamas attacks, Israel launched a ground and air strike on the Gaza Strip, killing more than 12,000 Palestinians, including 5,000 children, according to Palestinian health authorities. Much of the Gaza Strip lies in ruins, and the total blockade that Israel has imposed on the area has left its residents unable to obtain sufficient food, water, fuel, medical care, among other things at a critical level.