When Israeli forces held the security zone in southern Lebanon from 1982-2000, they came under constant assault by Hezbollah and other terrorist militias. Over time, the terrorists adopted more sophisticated ways to attack the better-armed Israel Defense Forces. A favorite tactic was to launch ground raids or conduct ambushes under cover of mortar and rocket fire. This spawned the IDF code word “Purple Rain” that informed soldiers to take up defensive positions in preparation for a possible ground assault, rather than to seek shelter during an artillery barrage.
Over the two and a half decades since the IDF left southern Lebanon, this type of assault became a distant memory, and the code “Purple Rain” became increasingly associated with the Red Alert sirens that sound during a Gaza rocket attack, which were almost never accompanied by a ground assault.
And so when “Purple Rain” was called out early on the morning of October 7, 2023, the young soldiers manning the Nahal Oz base on Gaza’s border failed to understand its true meaning.
The IDF’s preliminary investigation into the failures of Oct. 7 highlights the battle of Nahal Oz. Situated just 850 meters (2,800 feet) from the hostile Gaza border and the outskirts of Gaza City, the IDF base adjacent to Kibbutz Nahal Oz was nevertheless treated as though it were a rear position.
Just 162 soldiers were at the base on that fateful morning, half the usual number, due to a naive assumption by army brass that Hamas would never launch a major cross-border assault on the weekend. Worse still, just 90 the soldiers were armed, and fewer than that had combat training. The base’s heavy weaponry was locked away, so even those ready and able to fight were initially ill-equipped for what came at them.
The trained fighters at the base were all from the Golani Infantry Brigade. As the assault began at 6:29 am, their company commander, Maj. Shilo Har-Even, 25, shouted: “This is not a drill. We’re under fire. Iron Dome interceptions. Purple rain.”
But as noted, most of the young troops were unaware of the true meaning of “Purple Rain,” and so they filed into bomb shelters to wait out the rocket fire. Video from a soldier’s phone at 6:30 am showed Golani combat troops laughing inside a bomb shelter in a relatively calm atmosphere, many of them still wearing pajamas.
Courage under fire
It took only a minute or two for the team of young female surveillance soldiers (spotters) to realize an invasion was underway and to start providing precise intelligence to the few defenders at the gates. Har-Even rushed to join a nearby tank team and prepare for battle, while the three Golani soldiers who had been on early morning guard duty took up position at the base’s main gate. Later named as Staff Sgt. Dor Lazimi, Staff Sgt. Ori Karmi, and Staff Sgt. Adir Bogale, they fought heroically against the first wave of Hamas invaders before falling.
It took the Hamas forces only minutes to reach the base, and just 30 minutes to breach and enter the compound. At one point, there were 250 terrorists inside the base. While the initial defense was lacking, the battle was fierce, and Hamas lost half the men it threw at Nahal Oz.
During the long hours of fighting inside the base, a handful of warriors battled desperately to keep the jihadists from Gaza from slaughtering their defenseless and terrified comrades in the secured command room and bomb shelters. Har-Even charged repeatedly with his armored vehicle before having his hand severed by an anti-tank missile. He regrouped with another Golani commander and they again charged into the base, but Har-Even realized his tank was ineffective in those close quarters and roused the few troops with him to exit the vehicle and take the fight to the enemy, saying: “This is why we enlisted, this is what we swore to do.”
Har-Even’s men followed him into an impossible battle, few against many. They charged and killed a number of terrorists but Har-Even fell after coming under fire from four directions.
“It has been an honor”
With most of its armed defenders dead, the base at Nahal Oz was overrun just before 9 am. Terrorists begin going room-to-room slaughtering young unarmed soldiers and taking others hostage.
Bedouin tracker Warrant Officer Ibrahim Kharuba, 39, took two soldiers and guarded a room where many of the young female spotters were hiding. As the terrorists approached, they called out to him in Arabic, urging him to surrender and turn against Israel. Instead, he called his family to bid them farewell, told the young female spotters that it was “an honor to die for the country and for you,” and charged the enemy.
A few hours later, the command room is set on fire, killing most of the 22 spotters and staff officers inside.
Aftermath
Fifty-three soldiers fell at the Nahal Oz military base, and another 10 were taken hostage, including spotters Liri Albag, Naama Levy, Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, and Agam Berger, all of whom were released recently as part of the current ceasefire-hostage deal.
Many experts credit the heroic, though ultimately failed defense of Nahal Oz with preventing Hamas forces from pushing deeper into Israel and committing more serious massacres in larger population centers. Hamas had intended to overrun Nahal Oz in a much shorter timeframe before moving on to other targets, like the nearby city of Netivot.
Both Har-Even and Kharuba were posthumously recommended for the Medal of Valor, Israel’s highest military decoration.
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