As Israel celebrates the return of the young women hostages whose warnings of a Hamas attack were ignored, will the deadly hubris & sexism be acknowledged? (Dina Kraft, January 27, 2024)

Dina Kraft is a journalist, podcaster and the co-author of the New York Times bestseller, My Friend Anne Frank, together with Hannah Pick-Goslar. She lives in Tel Aviv where she's the Israel Correspondent of  The Christian Science Monitor and a creator of the podcast Groundwork, about activists working in Israel and Palestine. She was formerly opinion editor of Haaretz English.

In the weeks and months before Israel’s nightmare scenario unfolded at dawn on October 7, 2023, a unit of young female soldiers reported seeing streams of white pick-up trucks, vans, and motorcycles of Hamas militants near the border fence with Israel. Some paused to use binoculars to get a closer look into Israel.

The “spotters”, posted to 24-hour shifts at Nahal Oz base on Israel’s border with Gaza, studied surveillance cameras for suspicious activity and reported to their superiors what they were seeing.

They also listed other unusual Hamas activity unusually close to the border fence – the flying of drones, attempts to down army security cameras and even what appeared to be practice at shelling tanks. They suspected, they told their higher-ups, some kind of cross-border raid was afoot. They could not imagine the scope of what it would turn out to be a rehearsal for – but they passed on the concerning information – only to be ignored.

Their direct officers, also women,  persisted -- only to be warned by one high-ranking officer in Southern Command that if they continued to pester him, they would be court-martialed. They were trained to be the “eyes” of the Israeli army, they were told, but not the brains.

On October 7,  15 of the spotters, “tatzpitaniot” in Hebrew, were among the over 50 soldiers slaughtered on Nahal Oz base. Seven others were taken hostage, dazed and bloodied into Gaza by Hamas and a handful of others survived hiding, some of them huddled among dead bodies of their fallen friends. One was rescued early on. Another was killed in captivity.

On Saturday Israelis were glued to screens watching four of the five surviving spotters begin their journey to freedom 477 days after being taken captive. They were first seen emerging from a Hamas vehicle in northern Gaza. Across the border in Israel, loved ones shed tears of joy, joined by strangers who feel like they now know them after over 15 months of struggle for their return.

They could be seen walking on their own two feet, even smiling as they walked together, surrounded by masked gunmen and then taken up the steps of a stage erected especially for this moment - intended to be paraded as spoils of the war. But these four brave, strong young women, Naama Levy, Daniella Gilboa, Karina Ariev, all 20, and Liri Albag 19, flipped the script. They appeared defiant and strong on that stage, hoisting their arms in the air, even giving a thumbs up. It was their own victory march – they had survived.  

Soon after they were transported from the awaiting Red Cross officials to the Israeli army and then rushed into the arms of their mothers and fathers who had been put through a parallel version of hell along with their daughters.

Watching in the Channel 12 studio on air was Eyal Eshel, whose daughter, Sgt. Roni Eshel was one of the 15 spotters killed at Nahal Oz.  He said seeing the reunions he was both happy and relieved, but also jealous of the parents since he will never have his daughter back again.  

“I won’t lie, I am so jealous,” he said. “We miss Roni so much.” 

He said he wants to bring the truth to light – for all of Israel to know what happened before the morning of October 7 and what happened that day of blood, fire and abandonment on Nahal Oz. His daughter was apparently burned to death among others in the control room after it was set alight by Hamas. It took weeks to identify her remains.

There is so far no state commission of inquiry into the colossal failures of the army on October 7, including the events at Nahal Oz, which was supposed to be the first line of defense against Hamas in Gaza. So Eshel and other parents whose daughters in the unit were killed have done their own research.

“I understood one thing,” Eshel told the New York Times regarding the parents’ investigation. “Their abandonment and the disdain for them was so great.”

Surviving members of the unit have told Haaretz sexism played a role in their warnings being ignored. “It’s a unit made up entirely of young women and young female commanders,” a soldier said on condition of anonymity. “There is no doubt that if there were men sitting at those (surveillance) screens, things would look different.”

And I wonder, will the older men who dismissed the warnings from the young women pay a price – will the system itself try to make amends? Will there be justice, including for the senior officer who threatened to court-martial them for doing their job? It’s not just a matter of justice. Learning the lessons of that day and correcting the sexist pattern of treatment of these “eyes of the army,” which stretches back decades, is essential for Israel’s security and its soul.

Will the story of their dismissal and deadly abandonment be remembered as vividly as the emotional return Saturday of the brave hostages – and the fifth, Agam Berger, scheduled to be come on Thursday?

Their tale is a cautionary one. We know hatred can kill. So can hubris and sexism.

Imagine had these young women been listened to. Just imagine.