Israelis mourn on anniversary of Oct. 7 attack as Palestinians grapple with war it sparked

Israelis gathered on Wednesday to commemorate the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack that killed 1,200 people, saw 251 taken hostage, and sparked a devastating war in Gaza that has left much of the territory in ruins and its two million people living in dire conditions.

In southern Israel, families mourned at intersections, bomb shelters, and the site of a music festival that Hamas-led militants overran three years ago in the deadliest attack against Israel. It is the first anniversary that all the hostages are home, marking a new stage of grief.

For Palestinians, the anniversary brings another day of life of misery and difficulties after an Israeli retaliatory campaign in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of people. Most of the population of about two million people live in vast, squalid tent camps, with large parts of the strip's cities reduced to rubble.

More than half the territory remains in the hands of the Israeli military, and despite a ceasefire deal reached nearly a year ago, Israeli strikes continue almost daily.

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For the region, the day highlights a startling transformation over the past three years. Israeli troops occupy a large chunk of southern Lebanon in their conflict with Hezbollah, which began firing on Israel in 2023 in support of Hamas.

Commuters in Tel Aviv conduct a moment of silence on the highway as part of a memorial ceremony on Wednesday. (Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images)

Iran and the United States are locked in a confrontation that has seen attacks across Arab Gulf countries and has shaken the global economy — a conflict that Israel helped launch and that the Gaza war paved the way for even if they weren't directly connected.

Families mourn at music festival site

In Reim, the town where the music festival was underway on the day of the attack, families gathered around photos of their killed relatives. They hugged at 6:29 a.m. local time — the exact time the first rockets were launched three years ago — as booms from explosions in nearby Gaza were heard.

Anya Davitashili, who lost her 25-year-old son, Sean, said she comes to the site every Saturday because it's where she feels closest to him.

"I have a video of him dancing here that ends at 6:29 in the morning, it's in front of my eyes all the time," she said. "Every morning, you wake up and there is just endless missing."

Hundreds of people came to pay their respects to the more than 350 people killed in and around the festival site.

Released hostage marks 1st anniversary of freedom

Elkana Bohbot, 37, is marking the anniversary in Israel for the first time, after being released from 738 days of captivity last year. For most of that time, he said, he was held 50 metres underground in a dark, damp tunnel.

People attend a memorial service in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, southern Israel, where many community members were killed and abducted on Oct. 7, 2023. (Ariel Schalit/The Associated Press)

Bohbot, who was abducted from the Nova music festival , was kept in a small cell with other hostages, given very little food, and allowed to bathe only every few weeks, he said. His captors forced him to take part in several propaganda videos, including one where he acts out a fake call to his family.

In the 11 months since his release, Bohbot has undergone physical and emotional rehabilitation, written a book, begun a speaking career, travelled with his family, and celebrated all the holidays and birthdays he missed.

WATCH | Netanyahu accused of ignoring warnings before Oct. 7:

In August, his wife, Rivka, gave birth to a daughter, fulfilling a fierce promise that Bohbot made to himself in the tunnels to give his five-year-old son, Reem, a sibling.

The newborn Michele is "not a symbol for my people, she is more of a symbol for the enemy," Bohbot told The Associated Press. "So this child is the message for you that we were here, and we will always be here forever."

Palestinians struggle to recover in Gaza

No events are expected on Wednesday in Gaza, but Hamas in a statement praised the Oct. 7 attack as an example of "heroism, resilience and national solidarity" and said it had returned the Palestinian cause to the world's attention.

"The conflict with the enemy did not begin on that day, as its final chapters are not written yet," it said.

Palestinians in the territory said the extent to which their lives had deteriorated over the past three years was previously unimaginable.

"We witnessed death, destruction, and bombardment that we had never known before," said Walid Akram, a Gaza City resident who, like most in Gaza, has been displaced by the war.

Raed Khozeiq's coastal neighborhood in Tel al-Hawa was largely flattened. Nothing about his life now is the same, he said.

"No country in the world has gone through what we have experienced here," he said. "A war of extermination, starvation, the absence of schools and universities — nothing remains."

Israel's offensive has devastated the narrow strip and displaced around 90 per cent of its population, often multiple times. Restrictions on the entry of goods and aid have contributed to a severe hunger crisis.

More than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its figures but says around half were women and children. The numbers from the ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.

While a ceasefire that took effect on Oct. 10, 2025 has halted the heaviest fighting, Israeli strikes have continued, targeting what Israel says are Hamas militants. Since the ceasefire, 1,460 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the ministry. Seven Israeli soldiers have been killed in that period.

Palestinians walk along a street in Gaza City on Tuesday, surrounded by buildings destroyed by Israeli military strikes in the Israel-Hamas war. (Jehad Alshrafi/The Associated Press)

Hamas portrayed the Oct. 7 attack as a response to decades of Israeli military occupation, land seizures and settlement construction. But the Palestinians' dream of an independent state appears even more distant.

Middle East altered

A contentious election in Israel at the end of the month hangs over this year's anniversary. The government's official memorial services took place on Oct. 5, closer to the Hebrew-calendar anniversary of the attack. The separate commemorations are indicative of the deep divisions over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's handling of the war and his reluctance to launch an official inquiry into failings of the day.

The attack set in motion a cascade of events that led to wars across the Middle East as Israel confronted Hamas, Hezbollah and their backer Iran. Israel has seized swaths of territory in Syria and Lebanon, where more than 300,000 Lebanese remain displaced.

The United States joined Israel in attacking Iran's military and nuclear program in two rounds, battering Iran and upending global markets far from the battlefield.

Violence has also risen across the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Israel's far-right government has emboldened extremist settlers who have attacked Palestinians and destroyed their property.