Kan 7/10/360: The story of Pessi Cohen's house in Beeri on October 7th

On the morning of Simchat Torah, Pessi Cohen's sister, Hanna Siton, her husband Yitzhak Siton, and their son Tal are also present at Pessi's house. When the alarms start in the Kibbutz, all family members enter the safe room. Pessi lives on the ground floor in a two-story house

Residents of the Kibbutz are alerted to the infiltration of terrorists and are asked to enter the safe rooms. In the family WhatsApp group, family members update about their situation

After the terrorists take control of many buildings and areas in the Kibbutz, they also encircle the Ashalim neighborhood, where Pessi's house is located

A number of terrorists infiltrate the family house and break down the door of the safe room. The terrorists murder Yitzhak, wound his son Tal and then seat Pessi and her sister Hana at the dining table. The dining table in the house is on an enclosed terrace built to accommodate a large group of guests

For about two hours, dozens of terrorists led more and more abducted residents from nearby houses to the balcony of Pessi's house. In addition to her and the three members of the Siton family, the terrorists gather 11 more hostages: Ayala 'Ayalos' Hezroni along with her 12-year-old twins Liel and Yanai; the couple Zeev and Zehava Hacker; Hava Ben Ami; the couple Adi and Hadas Dagan who hosted at their house from the morning hours the couple Yasmin Porat and Tal Katz, who fled the Nova party; and Suheib Abu Amar ElRazam, a shuttle driver from East Jerusalem, who was abducted from the party and violently brought to the Kibbutz to serve as an interpreter for the terrorists. About 40 armed terrorists are gathering in the house and the nearby houses

One of the commanders of the terrorist force at the house, Hassan Hamduna, makes Yasmin Porat the liaison between him and the security forces. Hamduna instructs Yasmin to call the police's hotline to allow the terrorists safe passage from the Kibbutz into Gaza. After a brief conversation Yasmin has with a policewoman, one of the terrorist commanders demands to speak to one of the policemen himself in Arabic. He tells the policeman: “I'm from the Al-Qassam Brigades... if you give us trouble, I'll kill one of the hostages. There are 50 people here.” The policeman replies: “What's the problem?“. The bomber replies: “The problem is that I want to take everyone to Gaza. If you don't tell the army to guarantee us safe passage, all 50 will be killed.” Yasmin tells policewoman that there is a dead person and an injured person in the house

A group of terrorists remove Adi and Hadas Dagan, the wounded Tal Siton, Tal Katz, Zeev Hacker and Pessi herself from the house. The rest of the hostages remain inside the house

Security forces arrive to the courtyard of the house. The terrorists return inside the house and leave the six hostages in the yard. About ten minutes later, an exchange of fire begins between the police and the terrorists in the house. Even during the exchange of fire, Hamduna continues to talk to the National Counter-Terrorism Unit which is located outside the house. According to the IDF investigation, the hostages who were taken out of the house were not visible to the security forces and the fact that they were in the courtyard was not known to all the forces in the field

Colonel Nissim Hazan arrives inside a tank under his command to Kibbutz Beeri. Hazan, who fought in the area of the Nova party, located a tank that had been damaged and abandoned. He restored the tank to operational capacity along with other fighters, assembled a team of tank fighters and drove with them to Beeri. At the entrance to the Kibbutz, he receives an instruction to reach in front of Pessi's house. At 16:31, the forces outside the house fire a LAW missile at the house. 6 minutes later they fire another missile

Hamduna decides to surrender. He takes off his clothes and is left in only in his underwear. He grabs Yasmin from behind, wraps his arm around her neck and marches toward the cops. They ask him to strip completely. He does so and they allow him to reach them. The forces are interrogating Hamduna and at the same time questioning Yasmin about the number of terrorists, the condition of the hostages and their location. Even after the surrender of Hamduna, the exchange of fire between the terrorists and security forces continues

Naked and with his eyes covered with a cloth, the terrorist commander Hamduna urges his subordinates to surrender — but they do not listen to him. The tank commander receives an instruction to fire warning shots at the passageway adjacent to the house. After the shooting, the heavy exchange of fire between the parties continues

The tank fires a second shell - this time to the area in front of the house. About 7 minutes later, it fires another shell to the same place. Another team of police officers arrives at the house and tries to convince the terrorists to surrender. They refuse to get out and continue shooting.

The tank crew is instructed to fire another shell, this time at the roof of the house to allow the breach of the National Counter-Terrorism Unit. According to the IDF's investigation, the shell did not harm the hostages inside the house, but the splattering shrapnel struck Adi Dagan who was in the yard and brought about his death as well as wounding Hadas Dagan

Pessi's house takeover operation begins. A National Counter-Terrorism Unit force tries to guide the hostages to escape and tries to contact the terrorists so that they surrender. According to an IDF investigation, a few minutes later one of the fighters reports 5 dead in the courtyard of the house, and then one of the commanders of the force reports that he heard a long bang from inside the house. It is assumed at this point that the terrorists murdered the hostages and orders are given to break into the house while throwing grenades. At one point the house starts to catch fire. According to the investigation, at 21:18 the force rescues Hadas Dagan and Hava Ben Ami when she is mortally wounded. A short time later she died of her injuries