Terrorists behind Nova massacre had planned to take over city

IDF investigation reveals that terrorist forces that conducted massacre at music festival had arrived there by accident and had actually planned to take over a nearby city.

By World Israel News Staff

The most deadly massacre carried out by Gazan terrorists during their invasion of Israel on October 7th was the result in part of a navigational error by the terrorists, who had planned a potentially larger attack on a nearby Israeli city.

Israel’s national broadcaster, Kan, revealed on Monday that the Israeli military probe into the invasion found that the terrorists who carried out the Nova music festival massacre outside Kibbutz Re’im on the morning of October 7th had actually targeted the city of Netivot.

The Nova massacre, the deadliest slaughter of October 7th, leaving over 360 people dead and 44 taken hostage, was carried out by a force of 100-120 terrorists from Hamas’s Nuseirat Brigade.

The terrorist force crossed over from Gaza into Israeli territory during the second wave of attacks at 7:30 a.m., approximately an hour after the initial attacks.

The Nuseirat force entered Israeli territory in 14 pickup trucks and two motorcycles, the report said, and was armed with two heavy machine guns, three smaller machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, assault rifles, and grenades.

The terrorists had been assigned to capture the city of Netivot, but during the invasion, they lost their bearings, eventually stumbling upon the Nova festival outside of Kibbutz Rei’m instead, an hour and a half after entering Israeli territory.

Had the terrorists succeeded in locating Netivot, situated five kilometers northeast of Kibbutz Re’im and the Nova festival, the city would have been the most populous Israeli community to face Gazan invaders on October 7th.

Home to roughly 52,000 people in 2023, Netivot is significantly larger than the the two cities invaded on October 7th: Ofakim, with a population of 35,000, and Sderot, home to 33,000.