When soldiers from the Givati Shakked Battalion arrived on the scene of the Nova music festival near Kibbutz Reim in the early morning hours of October 7, they could not process what their eyes were seeing. Hundreds of bullet-riddled bodies were scattered on the ground, and dozens of wounded people – many gravely – were hiding from the terrorists in garbage bins, bathroom stalls or underneath the bodies of their friends. The Shakked force comprised nine fighters, joined by two fighters from the Israel Prison Service Masada unit and the Kibbutz Reim security officer – in total 12 fighters in an open field surrounded by dozens upon dozens of heavily armed terrorists. The force began scanning the forest in the vicinity of the party grounds, where they identified and took out two four-to-five-member terrorist squads. They requested backup but none arrived, thus they continued into the party compound alone.
Once the force tore down the fence surrounding the party compound, other terrorists opened fire at them, and they fought the terrorists for over a half an hour, pushing forward towards the heart of the compound, flanking additional terrorist and targeting them from afar, taking them out. Once the compound was cleansed of terrorist the force began to yet out “It’s the IDF! It’s the IDF!” to let the wounded know that the IDF first responders are on site. Gradually dozens of wounded began coming out of their hiding and force set up a secure emergency evacuation point. The force was alone in the field for two hours until backup arrived. They left their medic at the Evac point and continued to scour the area until they took out all the remaining terrorists in the compound. Theforce also encountered unarmed Palestinian Gaza civilians who came through the border fence in the wake of the terrorist incursion with the aim of pillaging and looting the bodies of any valuables. These civilians were cuffed and apprehended. From there the force continued onward, joining the fighting in the besieged Kissufim outpost and Kibbutz Kissufim. In the fighting, Sergen First Class Bar Kakoon was injured by shrapnel
