Israel commemorated this Monday the first anniversary of the devastating Hamas attack which sparked a war that sparked worldwide protests and now threatens to spark a much larger conflict in the Middle East.
The ceremonies and protests in Jerusalem and southern Israel began around 6:29 a.m., just as the terrorist group launched rockets into Israel at the start of its assault on October 7 last year and crossed the border . An attack in which around 1,200 people died while another 250 were taken as hostages in Gaza, according to Israeli figures.
The terrible events of a year ago plunged Israel into the darkest day in its historyin addition to shattering the sense of security of a large part of its citizens and reducing to a minimum confidence in the Israeli political class.
Around the Prime Minister’s house Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, some 300 people led by relatives of hostages holding photos of their loved ones, observed a minute of silence for the dead as a siren sounded.
“We are still stuck on October 7, 2023in an endless day of terror, fear, anger, despair,” said Yuval Baron, whose father-in-law Keith Siegel is kidnapped in Gaza.
“We wanted to start this day together to remind ourselves, our Prime Minister and the Israeli public that although it is a day of pain, there is still a sacred mission to bring back the hostages“, Baron emphasized.
In Reimvenue of music festival where more than 360 people were killed and dozens taken hostage, president Isaac Herzog presided over the memorial ceremony which started with the last song played at the party a year ago.
“We will always remember those who kidnapped, murdered, raped and massacred. At the same time, we also saw extraordinary strength. We have a wonderful people and on this day we strengthen them and call for unity,” Herzog said.
Throughout the day they celebrated ceremonies in kibbutz towns and villages close to the border.
Tribute to the victims and hostages
In Tel Aviv, The main memorial ceremony organized by the victims’ families, which was expected to be attended by tens of thousands of people, took place in front of a much smaller crowd, because Gatherings across the country are now limited in size for security reasons.
In fact, on Monday, two long-range missiles triggered air raid sirens in central Israel, forcing residents to take cover.
On three giant screens located in Yarkon Park in Tel Aviv, the names of all those who died were projected in the massacre of the Palestinian group on October 7 and in the months following the attack.
Likewise, they were also projected videos featuring relatives of hostages and fatal victims, like Or Gat, younger brother of psychologist Carmel Gat whose body was found last September with five other hostages in a Gaza tunnel.
The autopsy confirmed that Carmel Gat and the five other hostages were executed by Hamas days before troops reached their place of detention. “It shouldn’t have happened. It affected so many people,” lamented Or Gat, who also lost his father in the Hamas massacre.
“We are their voices and I want everyone to listen to these girls who cry for us from the bowels of the earth. With what we have left, we will ensure that responsibility is assumed,” several parents shouted. 16 girl surveillance soldiers murdered at the Nahal Oz military base.
Five of them are among the hundreds of people kidnapped still in power of the Islamist organization in the Gaza Strip. The Army says around 30 of them died.
A lot of It was these girl soldiers who warned, months before the Hamas attacks, of suspicious movements on the Gaza border and training of militias, without anyone listening to them, as their families denounced.
“A last word for my son Tal, my Taltaloni. If you can see or hear me, we miss you very much and are doing everything we can to bring you and the other hostages home. We are not going to abandon you. Abandoning them is abandoning us,” implored hostage Tal Shoham’s mother.
Relatives of the hostages, twelve months after the massacre, continue to ask the Israeli government to prioritize signing a truce agreement with Hamaswhose negotiations have been blocked since last August, to allow the release of their loved ones.
In a tone more solemn than vindictive, Dozens of events honoring Hamas victims held across Israel: in Reim, where some 400 people were killed during the Nova music festival; in Tel Aviv, or in Jerusalem, with the presence of Netanyahu himself, where he stressed that the Israelis rose up after October 7 like “a nation of wolves”.
