Shot 400 times: Mom of man killed in error on Oct. 8 says probe riddled with insensitivity
Israeli troops fired 400 rounds at Niv Aivas, mistaking him for a terrorist; after finally meeting officials, bereaved parents got letter addressed to son saying probe into ‘his’ complaint is closed
The Times of Israel
Feb 7, 2025
Keren Aivas (left), whose son Niv (right) was shot dead on October 8, 2023, when security forces misidentified him as a terrorist, in a report broadcast by Channel 12 news on February 6, 2025.
Niv Aivas, one of numerous civilians who rushed to volunteer for IDF reserve duty in the aftermath of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught on southern Israel, was killed a day later when Israeli security forces misidentified his car as that of an invading terrorist and gunned him down with some 400 rounds.
Aivas’s parents have since sought to hold those responsible to account, and have petitioned the High Court of Justice for the army to recognize their son as a fallen soldier rather than a “terror victim” as it does currently.
On January 30, they were horrified to receive an official letter addressed to their slain son, informing him that the Department of Internal Police Investigations — which probes allegations of police misconduct — had closed his complaint about the “incident of October 8, 2023,” after determining there was no “reasonable foundation to suspect criminal misconduct,” the parents told Channel 12 news in a report aired Thursday.
The late Aivas, according to the letter, is “entitled to appeal the decision to the appeals division of the State Prosecutor’s Office” via return mail or through the office’s website.
Keren Aivas, the bereaved mother, told Channel 12 she nearly fainted when she read the letter.
“I can’t understand,” said the mother, who has accused authorities of trying to whitewash the investigation. “Don’t they know he’s dead? Don’t they know that the ‘incident’ ended in a death that they are part of?”
Adding insult to injury, the letter arrived soon after Keren and her husband Benny Aivas had what they described as a productive meeting with DIPI officials about the probe of Niv’s death.
However, the letter was dated December 30, indicating the probe’s closure was already a done deal by the time of the meeting, which had given them hope that the investigation was being taken seriously.
DIPI apologized for the letter, saying it would investigate the error. However, the body repeated that it was closing the case, saying it had explained the decision to the bereaved family and that it would be impossible to identify who fired the first shots at Niv. DIPI added that it would assist the family in receiving the records of the investigation documents and would take into account any further material that comes to light.
Niv Aivas, 25, was a combat reservist with the rank of Staff Sgt. in the Caracal Battalion. He met his wife Lior, also a combat fighter, in the co-ed unit. Lior was pregnant when she lost her husband and has since given birth to a baby boy.
According to Channel 12, Niv Aivas wasn’t immediately called up by the military while fellow reservists, including his wife, were drafted soon after thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza. With security forces and the government taken by surprise, it took days until all the invading terrorists were rounded up or killed.
On October 8, still without draft orders, Aivas decided he could wait no longer. He left his home in Nitzan, a small community between Ashdod and Ashkelon, and headed to his parents’ house in Jerusalem to pick up his military gear.
Borrowing a relative’s blue Mazda, Aivas drove north on Route 4, just as security forces received an alert that terrorists were headed in the same direction, on the same road, in a stolen blue Audi, to carry out further attacks in central Israel.
Near the Ashdod-area Emunim Junction, Aivas spotted masked armed men and quickly turned around, suspecting they were terrorists. In fact, they were almost all members of Israel’s security forces who suspected him and opened fire — killing Aivas — when they saw what they deemed as a suspicious vehicle trying to flee.
One of the shooters was Roi Yifrach, who spent 11 months in jail for masquerading as a soldier. Yifrach has previously admitted to Channel 12’s investigative program Uvda that he had participated in the shooting that killed Aivas.
Keren Aivas told Channel 12 that police have been insensitive throughout the investigation of her son’s death.
A mere hour after the incident, “they asked me where I want the car,” she said. “What can I do with it? They didn’t even clean it. My son’s phone was lying open on the driver’s seat, riddled with bullets, showing a final call to an emergency number.”
In a meeting with deputy DIPI chief Ronen Yitzhak last month — for which Aivas’s parents said they had waited more than a year — the officer said Aivas had chanced upon a “killing zone,” according to Channel 12.
“The moment the shooting began, there was pandemonium; when they yelled ‘hold fire,’ it was already too late,” he reportedly said, adding that it was impossible to determine who fired the first shot.
Aivas’s parents were indignant. Benny, the father, told Yitzhak: “Someone gave an order to murder my son.”
“Any baby can tell the difference between a Mazda and an Audi,” the father told Yitzhak. “Had you and I been driving in a blue car, we would have been killed too.”
“The state must take responsibility for this,” he added. “People here need to sit in prison.”
However, the meeting ended on a more positive note, with the parents feeling they were genuinely heard and asking for clear statements about the failure to be included in the probe. Then the parents returned to find the infuriating letter.
Keren, the mother, excoriated the state for dragging its feet on the investigation, arguing that if such an invasion happens again, “everyone will wait at home for the official call-up, and the terrorists will reach Tel Aviv.”
“Why did it take you so long?” she said. “A human being was expunged from the State of Israel, expunged from the face of the earth. No one has taken the time to come, to share in our grief, to take responsibility.”
“I promise you that you have nothing new to tell me” about the investigation, she continued. “I’ve collected bullets — I’ll tell you which unit fired, who fired. There were bullets in my son’s body.”
Speaking to Channel 12, Keren Aivas said her son’s death “can’t be shoved into some basement archives. It’s inconceivable that nobody is taking responsibility. I’m not searching for someone to blame, just asking for someone to take responsibility.”
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