Suddenly, chaos. On Saturday October 7, 2023, the armed wing of Palestinian Hamas announced that it had launched the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation against Israel. More than 5,000 rockets are launched from the Gaza Strip and more than 2,000 men enter Israeli territory. Although we quickly learned that several dozen people had died, no one could imagine, at that moment, the scale and horror of this day. In the days that followed, the world learned that 1,205 people, mostly civilians, were killed and 251 people were kidnapped. A look back at a day in hell.
An offensive launched fifty years and one day after the start of the Yom Kippur War
The offensive of the Palestinian terrorist movement began before 6:30 a.m. local time with a deluge of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip which rained down on neighboring Israeli towns, but also as far as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. At the same time, Hamas terrorists, aboard vehicles, boats and even motorized paragliders, attack military positions and civilians in the streets. Quickly, there were more than 200 deaths.
Rockets fired by Hamas from the Gaza Strip reach Tel Aviv
Crédits photo : Amir Levy / GETTY IMAGES EUROPE / Getty Images via AFP
This attack occurs on the last day of the Jewish holidays of Sukkot in Israel, breaking the tranquility of a period where the country lives in slow motion, populated by numerous pilgrims and tourists, in the middle of the school vacation period and 51 days after the start of the Yom Kippur War, October 6, 1973.
Immediate response from the Israeli army
On social networks, propaganda videos show heavily armed Hamas terrorists entering Israeli territory. In an audio recording broadcast by Al-Aqsa TV, the Hamas television channel, Mohammed Deif, commander of the al-Qassam Brigades, confirmed the coordinated attacks: “We have decided to put an end to all the crimes of the occupation. ” The Israeli army responded immediately by launching Operation Steel Sabers. Around 11 a.m. local time, it announced that it would carry out its first airstrikes on Gaza in retaliation.
A land and air invasion
Nahal Oz, Kfar Aza, Magen, Be’eri, Sufa… All these Israeli villages, called kibbutz, are the scene of a violent battlefield. That of Kfar Aza was one of the first targets of the surprise attack. Houses were burned, several civilians killed and others kidnapped. The kibbutz of Be’eri was also the target of a large-scale attack which would prove to be the deadliest. Left to their own devices for long hours, residents defend themselves against terrorists. According to the Times of Israël101 civilians and 31 members of the security services were killed, 30 other residents and two other civilians were taken hostage that day. The town of Sderot is also affected by the fighting.
© JACK GUEZ / AFP
Israeli soldiers in Sderot, a town devastated by fighting
At the same time, Hamas terrorists infiltrated using motorized paragliders and stormed the “Nova” music festival near Kibbutz Reim in the Negev desert in southern Israel. And this is where the word horror takes on its full meaning. “The music stopped and the sirens sounded. The rockets started to invade the sky and we realized that we had to run away,” says Millet Ben Haim, a 27-year-old festival-goer, on her Instagram account. Understanding that the situation is abnormal, several festival-goers try to flee. Around thirty found refuge in a concrete shelter into which the attackers threw a grenade before firing.
IDF soldiers carry body to Kfar Aza kibbutz
Crédits photo : Amir Levy / GETTY IMAGES EUROPE / Getty Images via AFP
Kidnappings, rapes and executions
Several videos published on Telegram by Hamas show kidnapping scenes. One of the most viral is the kidnapping of Noa Argamani, taken on a motorcycle in front of her boyfriend Avinatan, whose hands are tied up. In another video, Shani Louk, a 22-year-old German-Israeli festival-goer, appears lifeless and naked alongside her captors on a pick-up truck. In another video, a young woman, her hands tied, appears, her pants bloody. These are the first images of the sexual assaults experienced by these women subsequently killed, as we will learn later from the testimonies of survivors and rescuers from the Zaka organization.
Haim Otmazgin is one of the rescuers who discovered these abused bodies. “At his crotch, in the inner part, a pair of scissors or a knife had been stuck,” he testified. While they were gathered to party, 364 people were murdered on October 7, 2023.
Israeli soldiers lay bodies among shattered cars at the site of the “Nova” festival.
Crédits photo : Alexi J. Rosenfeld / GETTY IMAGES EUROPE / Getty Images via AFP
In retaliation for the October 7 attack, the Israeli army launched an air campaign followed by a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip which left more than 40,000 dead, according to the Palestinian terrorist movement. According to the UN, the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel is also fighting Lebanese Hezbollah, which opened a front against the Jewish state in support of Hamas, its ally, following the start of the war. A year later, 97 people remain in Hamas hands, 33 of whom were declared dead by the army.
