Israelis gathered in silence on Wednesday to mark three years since Hamas-led militants attacked communities near the Gaza border, while Palestinians in Gaza mourned the destruction and displacement caused by the ensuing war.
At Kfar Aza, a kibbutz near the Gaza border that was overrun during the October 7, 2023 attacks, residents held a vigil for those killed. A trumpet played a solemn bugle call as a community member read out the names of the dead.
The attacks killed about 1,200 people in Israel and saw 251 others taken hostage, making October 7 the deadliest day in the country’s history.
Zion Regev, a community leader in Kfar Aza, said most residents remain displaced and have not returned, with the trauma of the attack continuing to affect the community.
“This is the first time we are doing all the things here in the kibbutz,” Regev said. “It’s a very emotional day, it’s a very difficult day for our community, three years after October 7th.”
The anniversary has also renewed calls in Israel for accountability over the security failure that preceded the attacks.
Protesters gathered outside parliament in Jerusalem, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of resisting calls for an independent investigation.
“We need the change and we need hope and we need to know that we have a government that cares about the public and doesn’t work also only for themselves,” protester Shaked Arrad said.
Netanyahu has rejected blame for the security breach and resisted demands for an independent inquiry. Some families of those killed have joined the election race, while opinion polls show neither Netanyahu nor his main rivals would currently have enough parliamentary seats to form a coalition.
On the eve of the anniversary, Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting that Israelis remember with grief those killed in the October 7 attacks and in the wider war.
In Gaza, Palestinians marked the anniversary among the ruins left by two years of Israeli bombardment. The conflict has displaced nearly the entire population and separated families.
Israeli military operations in Gaza have killed more than 74,000 people, including at least 1,400 since the US-brokered ceasefire that began a year ago, according to Gaza authorities cited in the supplied material.
The ceasefire halted major fighting but has not stopped Israeli attacks or resolved the issue of Hamas’s disarmament.
The latest violence continued on Wednesday, with Gaza medics reporting Israeli air strikes in Beit Lahia and Khan Younis that killed at least two Palestinians and wounded others. The Israeli military said it had struck a militant target in Beit Lahia but gave no details. It did not immediately comment on the reported strike in Khan Younis.
The October 10, 2025 ceasefire deal is the first since the attacks, but Israel remains in control of around two-thirds of Gaza, where buildings have been demolished and residents ordered to leave.
Hamas controls the remaining territory, a narrow coastal strip where about two million people largely live in makeshift tents and damaged buildings.
Umm Mohammad, a mother of five displaced from Gaza City and now living in a tent encampment in Deir Al-Balah, said the war had separated her family.
“We were one happy family. The war displaced us. My son left Gaza, the other went to a separate tent, my daughters left with their husbands to other parts of the Strip and we rarely meet,” she said.
She said the anniversary reminded her of the life her family had before the war.
“We recall how happy, despite all problems, we were before the war broke out, destroying everything we loved,” she said.
Ojo Triumph
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