An unofficial event organized on the occasion of the first anniversary of the pogrom committed by Hamas gunmen in southern Israel, on October 7, will finally take place in the presence of a limited audience which will bring together the families of the victims, its organizers declared on Saturday. At the origin of this change – 40,000 people had planned to attend the ceremony – the restrictions which were decided by the Home Front Command of the Israeli army which are currently in place and which prohibit large gatherings in the context of the recent fighting against Hezbollah.
The commemoration event, which was organized by the families, will take place in Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park at 7 p.m. Monday and will be broadcast on Israeli television channels and abroad.
Dozens of cities in Israel and around the world will also host screenings of the ceremony.
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“The ceremony is expected to be difficult and painful to watch, and we ask the general public to obey the instructions and watch it with their loved ones in the different communities,” organizers said in a statement.
Currently, the Israeli Army’s Home Front Command limits gatherings to 2,000 people in Tel Aviv due to ongoing threats of rocket attacks. Organizers said last month that the 40,000 free tickets for the commemoration event were booked within eight hours of being made available.
Yonatan Shamriz, whose brother Alon was accidentally killed by IDF troops in December while he was with two other hostages, apologized to those who in one way or another another, helped set up the ceremony, hoping for “better days when everyone can come together, together, in the absence of any restrictions or divisions”.
The devastation caused by Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Reim on October 7, 2023, near the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip, November 26, 2023. (Credit: Yossi Zamir/Flash90)
The event will be co-chaired by Hanoch Daum, writer, actor and comedian and actress and television host Rotem Sela. Artists – including Aviv Gefen, Agam Buhbut, Eden Hasson, Ran Danker, Shlomo Artzi and others – will also take part in the ceremony.
In addition, a pre-recorded commemoration ceremony organized by the state is scheduled to be broadcast at 9:15 p.m. the same evening.
The families of the hostages and other victims of October 7 have expressed their anger at the government’s decision to put Transport Minister Miri Regev in charge of holding the event.
In this context, members of communities from the Gaza border accused the government of using the official ceremony to avoid taking responsibility for the role it played in the failure to prevent the Hamas terrorist massacre, also accusing him of having abandoned these same communities in the aftermath of the pogrom. Many of them announced that they would not participate in Regev’s ceremony.
The minister refused several compromise proposals aimed at resolving the conflict between her and residents of the affected localities. Regev rejected these criticisms, comparing the organization of ceremonies other than the official event to another event that is organized every year on the occasion of Yom HaZikaron and which brings together Israelis and Palestinians – and which, according to the right, puts victims of terrorism and killed terrorists on the same level. This annual event is also castigated by the right of the political spectrum because, according to them, it places the pain of Israelis and that of Palestinians on the same level.
Our wounds are not yet completely healed
President Isaac Herzog said Saturday that the wound inflicted on Israel by the pogrom of October 7, 2023, was still raw. 101 hostages remain in Hamas jails in Gaza today, and Israeli citizens who were displaced by the fighting have not yet returned home.
“Our wounds are not yet completely healed because they are still present. Because hostages are still being tortured, executed and dying in captivity,” the president said in a statement that was released on the anniversary of the October 7 massacre.
President Isaac Herzog during the dedication ceremony of the new monument in memory of Jerusalem residents who were assassinated on October 7 or killed in the ensuing war, in Jerusalem, September 22, 2024. (Oren Ben Hakoon/Flash90)
He also said Iran remains a “permanent threat” to Israel as the entire region awaits Jerusalem’s response to the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile attack on Israeli soil. Jewish State, last Tuesday.
“We are still living with the aftermath of October 7 in many ways… This is the ongoing threat posed to the Jewish state by Iran and its proxies those enemies blinded by hatred and determined to destroy our one and only Jewish nation-state,” Herzog explained.
It will be the first anniversary, Monday, of the pogrom committed by Hamas in southern Israel, October 7, 2023. On that Shabbat morning, thousands of terrorists under the leadership of Hamas massacred more than 1,200 people, also kidnapping 251 people who had been taken hostage in the Gaza Strip – the deadliest day for world Jewry since the Holocaust.
