Unprecedented attacks against Israel took place on October 7, 2023.
AFP
For the first anniversary of the deadliest day in Israel since its creation in 1948, the head of state, Isaac Herzog, will preside over a commemorative ceremony in Sderot, one of the hardest hit cities.
The death toll from this attack stands at 1,205, mostly civilians, according to a count based on official Israeli data and including hostages who died or were killed in captivity in the Gaza Strip.
Other events planned for Monday in Israel include a commemoration in Kibbutz Reim, site of the Nova music festival where Hamas militants killed at least 370 people, and a rally in another nearby kibbutz, Berri, where more than 100 people were killed. were killed on October 7, 2023.
In Tel Aviv, demonstrations are organized from Sunday. Families of hostages still held in the Gaza Strip plan a rally to demand their release. In total, 251 hostages were taken to the Gaza Strip. A year later, 97 are still held in captivity, including 33 declared dead. On Saturday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said in a statement that the wounds were “not yet completely healed… because hostages are still being tortured, executed and dying in captivity.”
He also indicated that Iran and its “proxies”, notably the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas, posed “a permanent threat” to his country by being “blinded by hatred and determined to destroy our one and only State- Jewish nation.
“Determined”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to deliver a speech to the nation on Monday. The official events have not yet been publicly announced.
“We are winning. We are determined to continue striking our enemies, to return our residents to their homes and to bring back all our hostages,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a recent speech.
On October 7, Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza entered southern Israel, using explosives and bulldozers to breach the barrier separating the Palestinian territory from Israel, killing indiscriminately on kibbutzim, military bases and on the Nova music festival website. In the hours that followed, Mr. Netanyahu declared in a televised address that Israel was “at war” and later repeated that the goal was to destroy Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007.
Since then, entire sectors of the Gaza Strip have been reduced to ruins and almost all of its 2.4 million residents have been displaced at least once during the war which has caused a serious humanitarian crisis. .
At least 41,825 Palestinians were killed there, the majority civilians, according to data from the Hamas government’s Health Ministry for Gaza, deemed reliable by the UN.
Reprisals
The war quickly spread to the border with Lebanon, where the Islamist movement Hezbollah, supported by Iran, began firing rockets at Israel on October 8, claiming to do so in support of its ally Hamas.
They intensified at the end of September, with the Israeli army saying it wanted to stop Hezbollah’s fire to allow tens of thousands of residents of northern Israel displaced by projectile fire from Lebanon to return home.
The war in Gaza and Lebanon threatens to spread across the region after an attack by Iran that fired around 200 missiles at Israel on October 1.
Tehran indicated that this was in retaliation for the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah last week in Beirut, and that of former Hamas leader Ismaïl Haniyeh, killed in July in Tehran. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, assured Friday that Tehran’s allies, notably Hamas and Hezbollah, would not “back down” in their war against Israel.
(afp)
