Inside Shaldag on October 7: New Documentary Reveals the Decisions Made in the Chaos

A new Israeli documentary has opened an unusually detailed window into how one of the country’s most secretive special forces units fought on October 7, 2023, and how some of the most consequential decisions of that morning were made with an incomplete and sometimes inaccurate picture of what was happening only kilometers away.

“Shaldag,” a two-part Keshet 12 documentary by Israeli journalist Ben Caspit, began airing on September 23, 2026. It features testimony from commanders and fighters of the Israeli Air Force’s Shaldag Unit, also known as Unit 5101, about battles at Camp Re’im, Kibbutz Be’eri, Alumim, Kfar Aza, Holit and other locations during the Hamas-led assault.

The documentary contains accounts of close combat, casualties and civilian rescues. But its most important contribution may be something less dramatic: a description from inside the unit of just how poor the Israeli military’s operational picture was during the first hours of the attack.

At one point, Shaldag’s commander says he was told that the Gaza Division headquarters at Camp Re’im had been captured. That information helped drive his decision to send forces there.

The later IDF investigation reached a more qualified conclusion. Hamas terrorists penetrated Camp Re’im, occupied positions inside it and severely disrupted the headquarters, but the investigation found that fighting at the entrance prevented Hamas from capturing the entire base.

That distinction matters.

The documentary records what commanders believed in real time. The investigations conducted later had access to surveillance footage, communications, testimony and reconstructed timelines that were unavailable to those commanders while the attack was unfolding.

A Special Forces Unit Sent Into an Unclear Battlefield

Shaldag was established in 1974 following the Yom Kippur War and today operates as part of the Israeli Air Force’s special forces structure under the 7th Wing.

Its publicly acknowledged missions include special reconnaissance, air to ground coordination, directing aircraft and strikes, and operations deep inside hostile territory.

October 7 presented something very different.

Instead of preparing for a defined special operation, Shaldag teams were dispatched into an expanding battlefield inside Israel, with Hamas terrorists attacking military installations, kibbutzim, roads and civilians across the Gaza border region simultaneously.

The unit commander, identified in the documentary only as Lt. Col. B. because of operational security restrictions, says he began mobilizing Shaldag at approximately 6:29 a.m.

According to his account, the unit ultimately operated at seven locations: Kfar Aza, Be’eri, Camp Re’im, Alumim, Sufa, Camp Urim and Holit.

Official investigations independently confirm Shaldag deployments at several of those locations, including Be’eri, Re’im and Kfar Aza. Publicly available evidence about the unit’s precise actions at Sufa and Urim remains much more limited.

The Message That Gaza Division Headquarters Had Fallen

One of the documentary’s most consequential revelations concerns the information reaching Shaldag during the attack.

Lt. Col. B. says a Gaza Division operations officer told him that the division headquarters at Camp Re’im had been captured.

For a commander trying to allocate a limited number of elite troops across a rapidly expanding attack, that message carried enormous significance. The Gaza Division headquarters was supposed to help coordinate the defense of the entire border region.

Shaldag therefore prioritized the base.

The subsequent IDF investigation found that Hamas had assigned roughly 60 attackers to the assault on Camp Re’im. Around half fought near the entrance while approximately 30 penetrated through breaches in the perimeter.

The attackers reached internal facilities and firing positions, damaged parts of the base and disrupted command and control.

But the official investigation concluded that the defense at the gate prevented the camp from being fully captured.

The safest description, therefore, is not that Hamas seized the entire Gaza Division headquarters, but that it penetrated the base and temporarily controlled or dominated parts of it while severely impairing its operations.

That does not make the message received by Shaldag irrelevant. On the contrary, it helps explain why the unit made the choices it did.

Shaldag Arrives at Camp Re’im

According to the official reconstruction, a 15-member Shaldag force left Palmachim by helicopter at 9:54 a.m. and landed east of Camp Re’im at approximately 10:18.

The force later moved into the base and encountered Hamas terrorists positioned around the sports hall, auditorium and gym area.

Maj. Ido Yehoshua and Capt. Rom Shlomi were killed during the fighting. Three other Shaldag personnel were wounded.

More forces gradually joined the battle. A second Shaldag force of approximately 20 personnel arrived at 12:45 p.m., followed by additional IDF units.

The base was not declared cleared until around 7 p.m.

The IDF investigation later concluded that the military had failed to defend Camp Re’im properly. It identified defective security infrastructure, inadequate preparation, insufficient weapons availability and a “rear area” mindset at a headquarters located close to the Gaza border.

Directing Helicopter Fire Through WhatsApp

One of the documentary’s most striking accounts concerns the way Shaldag coordinated with an attack helicopter during the battle.

Lt. Col. B. says the ground force did not have working radio communications with the helicopter crew.

The pilot instead contacted him by mobile phone and sent an image from the helicopter’s targeting system through WhatsApp. The Shaldag commander says he marked the location of Israeli forces and the area to be attacked before sending it back.

Previous reporting based on interviews with Israeli Apache commanders had already established that a special forces unit at Re’im communicated with an attack helicopter through WhatsApp because conventional radio communications were unavailable.

The documentary appears to add the more specific detail about the targeting image being sent and annotated.

The official Camp Re’im investigation confirms that attack helicopters carried out strikes directed by Shaldag later that afternoon, although its publicly released findings do not describe the WhatsApp exchange.

It is a small detail with much larger significance.

A sophisticated military force was improvising targeting coordination through a civilian messaging application because its normal communications systems were not functioning adequately during one of the most important battles of the day.

“I Would Have Sent Them to Nir Oz”

The documentary also includes a retrospective statement from the Shaldag commander that goes directly to the wider failure to understand what was happening across the Gaza border communities.

Lt. Col. B. says that if he had known there were communities where no military force had arrived, he would have redirected reinforcements approaching Camp Re’im elsewhere, specifically mentioning Nir Oz.

It is impossible to know what effect such a decision would have had.

What the statement does reveal is the information problem confronting commanders.

Shaldag was directing scarce forces toward what its commander believed was a captured divisional headquarters while Israeli civilians elsewhere were still waiting for military forces to arrive.

That problem appears repeatedly in the official October 7 investigations: units were dispatched without a reliable picture of enemy strength, civilian danger or the location of other Israeli forces.

Be’eri: The Most Difficult Part of the Shaldag Story

The documentary also confronts the controversy surrounding Shaldag’s first team at Kibbutz Be’eri.

The official IDF investigation identified a 13-member Shaldag team as the first organized IDF force to enter the kibbutz.

But even the time of its arrival remains disputed.

The official investigation recorded an arrival time of 9:03 a.m.

Shaldag veteran Lt. Col. Roni Eliav subsequently said the force arrived at approximately 8:45. Earlier testimony from an Israeli attack helicopter commander placed the landing operation even earlier, at around 8:30.

These accounts may refer to different moments, such as the helicopter reaching the area, landing, troops disembarking or the force entering the built-up part of Be’eri.

No publicly available primary source has conclusively reconciled the discrepancy.

What is clear is that the small Shaldag team entered a community in which the number of attackers vastly exceeded the number of Israeli troops available at the time.

Sgt. First Class Ohad “Budi” Cohen was killed during the initial engagement and two other fighters were seriously wounded.

The force then moved back toward the entrance.

That decision became one of the most controversial elements of the official Be’eri investigation.

What the Official Inquiry Said

The IDF inquiry criticized the movement of the first Shaldag team away from the central battle and concluded more broadly that Israeli forces sometimes remained outside the kibbutz while civilians and members of Be’eri’s local defense team continued fighting inside.

The investigation said the military failed in its fundamental mission to protect the community.

It found that the IDF did not establish an accurate understanding of the battle until much later in the day and that command and coordination between arriving forces were deeply deficient.

Approximately 340 attackers were estimated to have been in or around Be’eri by late morning.

The inquiry recorded 101 civilians killed. Thirty Be’eri residents were abducted, while two additional Israelis who had escaped the Nova festival were abducted from the Be’eri area.

Shaldag’s Response

Shaldag personnel have disputed important parts of the official reconstruction.

According to the account presented in the documentary, after Cohen was killed and two fighters were seriously wounded, the team commander concluded that remaining in the same position could result in the destruction of the entire force.

The documentary says the team repositioned toward the entrance with approval from higher command and continued engaging terrorists attempting to enter through that area.

Shaldag representatives have also previously disputed claims that the entire force remained outside for approximately an hour.

They argued that only part of the force was involved in casualty evacuation and that the interruption was considerably shorter.

The documentary does not resolve the dispute.

What it does provide is the most detailed public explanation yet from within Shaldag of why the unit says those decisions were made.

The official inquiry’s criticism remains part of the record. So does Shaldag’s competing account.

Both are necessary to understand the controversy accurately.

A Team Bound for Be’eri Is Diverted Near Alumim

Another episode described in the film shows how forces dispatched toward one destination could suddenly find themselves fighting somewhere else.

A Shaldag team commanded by an officer identified only as Lt. L. was heading toward Be’eri when it encountered evidence of a major attack near Alumim.

The documentary describes bodies on the road, a burning helicopter or helicopter wreckage and gunfire in the area.

The force dismounted and moved toward the fighting.

Among the soldiers was CWO Ido “Crido” Rosenthal, a 45-year-old veteran reservist described in the documentary as the unit’s most experienced fighter.

Rosenthal was killed during the engagement.

The documentary says Shaldag personnel attempted to reach him, but another fighter was shot and the recovery effort had to be halted.

A drone was then used to locate Rosenthal. According to the soldiers interviewed, armed men could be seen positioned near him and the force believed they were waiting for another recovery attempt.

Shaldag eventually recovered Rosenthal’s body with support from an attack helicopter and nearby paratroopers.

The account is detailed and comes directly from participants in the battle, but no published official investigation has independently reconstructed the entire sequence.

The documentary also establishes that the soldiers feared Rosenthal’s body might be abducted. It does not conclusively establish that Hamas fighters physically attempted to carry it away.

Kfar Aza, Holit and the Other Shaldag Battles

The documentary places Shaldag forces across a much wider area than Be’eri and Re’im.

The official investigation into Kfar Aza reported that 37 Shaldag fighters arrived by helicopter at approximately 3:15 p.m. and operated within a command framework established by Duvdevan.

In Holit, a Shaldag officer identified as Maj. A. recounts finding a 15-year-old boy beneath a blanket inside a home after the boy’s parents had been shot.

The officer says he turned the boy’s head away as he brought him out so that he would not see his parents.

The rescue is presented as direct participant testimony. A separate public reconstruction confirming every detail of the episode has not been located.

The documentary also identifies Shaldag activity at Sufa and Camp Urim, although enough independently verified information is not currently available to reconstruct those operations in similar detail.

Five Shaldag Members Were Killed

Five Shaldag personnel were killed on October 7:

Maj. Ido Yehoshua, 27, was killed during the battle at Camp Re’im.

Capt. Rom Shlomi, 23, was also killed at Camp Re’im.

CWO Ido “Crido” Rosenthal, 45, was killed near Alumim.

Capt. Shilo Cohen, 24, was killed in the battle for Be’eri.

Sgt. First Class Ohad “Budi” Cohen, 20, was killed during the first Shaldag engagement inside Be’eri.

The documentary describes the impact of those deaths on a unit accustomed to operating with extraordinary confidence in its personnel and methods.

The fighting continued even as the unit began burying its dead.

One account describes deployed soldiers watching the funeral of a fallen comrade remotely while remaining armed and ready to return to combat.

What the Documentary Actually Adds

Nearly three years after October 7, much of the broad chronology of the attack is already known.

That is not what makes “Shaldag” important.

Its value is in showing how events looked from inside a unit making decisions before the investigations, reconstructed timelines and aerial footage existed.

The documentary adds detail to previously reported WhatsApp communications with attack helicopters.

It records the Shaldag commander saying he would have sent reinforcements elsewhere had he understood that communities such as Nir Oz still had no military force.

It provides a detailed participant account of Rosenthal’s death and recovery.

It gives Shaldag commanders an opportunity to answer the criticism surrounding Be’eri.

And it reveals that the message driving the decision to prioritize Camp Re’im was that the Gaza Division headquarters had been captured, even though the later IDF investigation concluded that the base had been penetrated but not fully seized.

None of that removes the failures identified by the official investigations.

The IDF concluded that it failed to defend both Be’eri and Camp Re’im.

But the documentary helps explain a different question: how highly trained soldiers could be fighting intensely in one location while civilians only a short distance away remained without adequate military protection.

The answer emerging from Shaldag’s testimony is not simply a shortage of courage or combat power.

It is a battlefield in which the people making decisions did not know enough, quickly enough, about what was happening around them.

That gap between reality on the ground and the information reaching commanders may be one of the most important pieces of the October 7 story that “Shaldag” adds to the public record.