Israel marks anniversary of Hamas attack

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a message of unity, but families who lost loved ones called for accountability

Ceremonies have been held across Israel to mark the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ October 7 attack on the Jewish state. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that the attack awakened Israel’s “inner strength,” families of those killed blame the state for allowing it to happen in the first place.

Hamas militants launched a surprise assault on Israel one year ago on Monday, occupying dozens of towns and villages in the south of the country, killing around 1,100 people, and taking roughly 250 hostages back to Gaza. Israel responded by declaring war on the militant group. The ongoing conflict has claimed nearly 42,000 Palestinian lives to date, as well as the lives of 726 Israeli soldiers.

“As has happened time and again in Israel’s history, it is precisely in moments of difficulty that great inner strength emerges,” Netanyahu said at a pre-recorded ceremony aired on Monday. “We stood together for the defense of our country, for the defense of our homeland,” he continued, adding that Israel “will continue to fight” as long as “the enemy threatens our existence and the peace of our country.” 

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At an unofficial ceremony organized by families who lost loved ones during the attack, the mood was angrier. Speaking at the event in Tel Aviv, Yonatan Shamriz, whose brother was killed by an Israeli soldier during a bungled hostage rescue mission in December, said that October 7 “was a day without an army, without a state – a day where all we had was ourselves, the citizens.”

Shamriz is not the first Israeli to accuse the country's government of failing to prepare for the attack. Within days of the assault, Egyptian intelligence officials said that they had repeatedly warned their Israeli counterparts that Hamas was planning “something big,” but that these warnings were ignored in West Jerusalem. In early October of last year, the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) intelligence directorate compiled a report stating that the Palestinian militants were training for a large-scale invasion of the Jewish state, Israeli broadcaster Kan claimed in June.

According to an Israeli source cited by American journalist Seymour Hersh last year, Netanyahu was so unconcerned with the possibility of an attack from Gaza that he ordered two-thirds of the IDF troops normally stationed at Israel’s border with the enclave to provide security at an Orthodox Jewish festival in the West Bank.

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“Instead of standing here as multitudes of the people of Israel, united, we stand here waiting for the next siren,” Shamriz said, referring to the rockets still being launched into Israel by Hamas and Hezbollah. “Instead of a state inquiry commission being established to investigate this colossal failure, we are asking the questions ourselves without getting any answers.”

At rallies and vigils over the last year, families of those taken prisoner by Hamas have repeatedly called on Netanyahu to strike a deal with the militants to free their loved ones. Around 100 hostages remain in captivity, and at a protest in Jerusalem on Monday, Yael Or, whose cousin’s body is still in Gaza, accused Netanyahu of choosing “endless war” over the hostages’ release.

“Netanyahu wants to stay in power forever,” she said. “And to do that, he has dragged Israel into eternal, never-ending war. This means that our hostages have been abandoned in Hamas death tunnels deep under Gaza. Netanyahu has committed crimes against his own people.”