In Réïm, at the scene of the Nova music festival massacre, where more than 370 people were killed, a gathered crowd kicked off these ceremonies with a minute of silence at precisely 6:29 a.m. (5:29 a.m. in Switzerland), moment of the start of the attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement on southern Israel.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog took part in the ceremony in the company of the victims’ families, most of them in tears, according to an AFP correspondent on site.
Barely minutes after the start of the ceremonies, at least four projectiles were fired from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory, the army said. She said she intercepted three, while the fourth fell in an uninhabited place.
The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks. “We aimed [un kibboutz et une base militaire ainsi qu’un rassemblement de soldats israéliens] with a number of rockets,” the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas said in a statement.
Netanyahu’s speech
Later today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to address the nation. Other gatherings are planned in Tel Aviv or in Nir Oz, a kibbutz where around thirty residents were killed and more than 70 taken hostage and taken to Gaza.
Elsewhere, from Sydney to Berlin, from Buenos Aires to New York, numerous gatherings or ceremonies will mark the anniversary of this surprise offensive which left 1,205 dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official figures. Israelis, including hostages who died in captivity.
On Sunday, tens of thousands of people have already demonstrated across the world, whether to pay tribute to the victims of October 7 or in support of the Palestinians after a year of bloody war in the Gaza Strip.
Reminder of the facts
On October 7, 2023, Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza entered southern Israel, using explosives and bulldozers to cross the barrier surrounding the Palestinian territory, killing indiscriminately in kibbutzim, military bases and on the Nova festival website.
In the following hours, the Israeli army launched a powerful offensive against the Palestinian territory with the aim of destroying Hamas, in power since 2007. Since then, entire sectors of the Gaza Strip have been reduced to ruins, the almost all of its 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced by the war and at least 41,825 Palestinians have been killed there, the majority civilians, according to data from the Hamas health ministry.
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