Meet the IDF officer whose team was first to get to Re’im
On Saturday, October 7, thousands of Israelis were celebrating at a rave near Kibbutz Re’im, and then the unimaginable happened. Hamas terrorists ambushed the party and began to murder, rape, and kidnap the revelers.
Company commander Cpt. Avichai’s team was the first on the scene.
Avichai’s Givati company had started the day at their regular base in the West Bank.
“I woke up to a phone call from my wife in Petah Tikva telling me there were red alerts,” he told The Jerusalem Post. “Then my battalion commander called me and told me to prepare armored vehicles.”
Avichai thought the vehicles would be used for a task within the West Bank because the area tends to get rowdy when the situation heats up with Gaza, but it soon became clear that this was not the case.
“As I was getting ready, I started seeing the videos from Sderot, and I understood that we were going south,” he said.
Once he and his team were on the road, his commander told him to drive toward Gaza. They went to Ofakim first but then got reports of the massacre at the party in Re’im and were sent there.
“Along the road to Ofakim, we saw bodies every 10 meters,” he recalled. “There were bodies of terrorists, civilians, and soldiers, and it only got worse as we neared Re’im.”
When Avichai and his team of 12 arrived in Re’im, they began scouting the
area, fending off terrorists in repeated close-range firefights. In total, Avichai said, his team killed somewhere between 11 and 15 terrorists.
When they had cleared the area of terrorists, the team split into two groups; the first scouted the place to make sure it remained secure, and the other tended to wounded Israelis. In total, the team saved 30-40 people, some of whom had been wounded and others who had not managed to escape.
“In the middle, two motorcycles rode up with armed terrorists carrying RPGs,” said Avichai.
All four terrorists were killed, and a group of unarmed Gazan residents was arrested.
After a while, backup arrived, and Avichai’s team was free to move to other locations where they were needed. In Kibbutz Re’im,
they used their armored vehicles to draw out terrorists before going on to Kissufim.
While in Kissufim, multiple team members were wounded, including Avichai, who was hit by shrapnel from a grenade and was seriously injured. His battalion commander was able to rescue him from the fighting.
As there were no ambulances available to evacuate them, Avichai and the other wounded soldiers were loaded onto a minibus. Despite his injuries and with only painkillers to help, Avichai helped the driver navigate out of danger to Soroka Medical Center, where he is still recovering.
Avichai is not deterred by his injury.
“I’m doing everything I can to get better and get back to my soldiers,” he said. “The hardest thing is not being with them, but I’m so proud of them and my battalion commander. It’s an honor to be part of Givati.”
As the first on the scene at the site of the rave massacre, Avichai’s team saw terrible things, but he said they try to stay strong mentally as well as physically so that they can do their duty.
“I’m in shock that a person with a soul is capable of doing those things to another person,” he said.
But despite what he saw, he still has hope.
“It’s important to me to say, as a commander in the army, that we are ready, especially Givati, to fight and to defend the country,” he said. “As a citizen, I say that only unity will bring us victory. In Givati, we say, ‘Only together we will win.’ As a people, we need to stick together, and then, when this is over, we can improve wherever we need to.”