The Israel Police on Sunday neutralized a Hamas grenade that was discovered in Kibbutz Be’eri, almost two years after the terrorist organization’s Oct. 7, 2023, onslaught on the border town.
Workers discovered a suspicious metal object during reconstruction work at the kibbutz and immediately alerted authorities, police stated.
“The grenade, which had remained in the area since the intense fighting, was located and safely neutralized by police officers and bomb disposal experts from the Southern District,” according to the Hebrew statement.
An investigation was reportedly opened into how the grenade went undiscovered during the 24 months since the Oct. 7 attacks, which claimed the lives of nearly 10% of Be’eri’s 1,100 residents.
Another 30 kibbutz members were among the 251 people taken hostage to Gaza, with four Be’eri residents remaining in captivity after 730 days.
The discovery of the grenade came some three months after Israel’s government declared that there were “no security obstacles” that prevent displaced residents from returning to Be’eri.
Thousands of terrorists from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah, as well as unaffiliated Gazan “civilians,” infiltrated Israel’s south on Oct. 7, 2023.
As recently as June 2024, authorities discovered a decayed corpse that likely belonged to Palestinian terrorist in the Sha’ar Hanegev region, adjacent to northeastern Gaza. Alongside the body, security forces located an empty combat vest and a shirt with Arabic letters on it.
