apache setup .htaccess rewriteRule with laravel - laravel

Question

im setting up (laravelproj/public/.htaccess)
the example ones that I've worked on 2 different servers as follows:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
<IfModule mod_negotiation.c>
Options -MultiViews -Indexes
</IfModule>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://takaful.hsn93.com/$1 [R,L]
# Handle Authorization Header
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Authorization} .
RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]
# Redirect Trailing Slashes If Not A Folder...
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (.+)/$
RewriteRule ^ %1 [L,R=301]
# Handle Front Controller...
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
</IfModule>
now I'm trying it on cent OS apache (httpd) (if that matters)
and when i put in the link (http://example.com/) < apache returns the following:
i dont have any other problem except this link ^ with no parameters ^
Forbidden
You don't have permission to access / on this server.
so to make it work i'd to comment this line (condition where it checks if the requested isnt directory:
#RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
which make sense because / is of course a directory ..
but why did this .htaccess configuration worked on all other machines?
what is different on this machine that makes this condition returning a forbidden from apache

Answer 1

i found the problem is that httpd.conf
doesnt index (index.php) files just (index.html)
so i modified it
<IfModule dir_module>
DirectoryIndex index.html
DirectoryIndex index.php
</IfModule>