The sounds of helicopters and artillery fire echoed from nearby Gaza as families yesterday lit candles at a memorial service in southern Israel to mark the first anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.
The reverberations from the ongoing fighting served as an immediate and painful reminder of the wars sparked by the Hamas onslaught that left 1,205 dead on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, after the militants overran swathes of southern Israel — killing civilians across kibbutzim, small communities and a music festival.
Hamas took 251 people as hostages to the Gaza Strip, of whom 97 are still being held captive in the coastal territory, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Photo: Reuters
At the Nova rave site, Israeli President Isaac Herzog began the day with a moment of silence at 6:29am — the minute the attack began with thousands of rockets fired from Gaza to provide air cover to militants storming across the border.
“October 7, 2023, is a day that should be remembered in infamy, when thousands of cruel terrorists broke into our homes, violated our families, burned, chopped, raped and hijacked and abducted our citizens, our brothers and sisters,” he said. “This is a scar on humanity.”
The fields at kibbutz Reim are where at least 370 people were killed when Hamas fighters murdered people attending a music festival en masse and abducted several others — making it the single deadliest site on Oct. 7 last year.
Families wearing T-shirts with the faces of the missing embraced and others took pictures as the trance song that played at the rave during the moment of the attack blared in homage to the music festival.
“The feelings for all the people of Israel are very difficult. We hope that from this difficult decline we have reached, from now on there will only be an ascension,” said Israel Livman, whose nephew was killed during the attack on the festival.
As commemorations began, the military said at least four projectiles were fired from the Gaza Strip, where at least 41,909 people have been killed since the start of Israel’s retaliatory offensive.
The rockets from the strip were just a few in a flurry of barrages fired yesterday, with most crossing from the northern border with Lebanon, where Israeli troops have also been battling Hezbollah militants for the past year and launched a ground incursion last week.
Near the border with Gaza, thousands of people in cars flocked to a separate ceremony at the kibbutz Nir Oz, even as nearby military positions targeted the strip with heavy bursts of shelling, and helicopters fired at the territory and dropped flares.
Nir Oz was among the hardest hit communities, with initial assessments suggesting one in four residents were either killed, kidnapped or missing in the wake of the attack.
In Jerusalem, demonstrators protested near Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence, where they demanded a ceasefire and called for the return of the hostages still held captive in Gaza.
Protestors waved signs with pictures of the hostages saying “Bring them home now.”
“Our loved ones are still in captivity,” demonstrator Yuli Ben Ami said. “It’s a really hard punch in the gut. It’s a year that just disappeared.”
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