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.”
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
RSS