Reim (Israel), Oct 7 (AP): 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 2 million people living in dire conditions.
In southern Israel, families mourned at intersections, bomb shelters, and the site of a music festival that the militants overran three years ago in the deadliest attack against Israel. It is the first anniversary of all the hostages being home, marking a new stage of grief.
For Palestinians, the anniversary brings another day 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 2 million people lives 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. Despite a ceasefire deal reached nearly a year ago, Israeli strikes continue almost daily.
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 the Hezbollah militant group, which began firing on Israel in 2023 in support of Hamas. Iran and the United States are locked in a confrontation that has seen attacks across Gulf Arab 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 the Nova 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 am — 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.
A released hostage marks his first Oct. 7
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 meters (165 feet) underground in a dark, damp tunnel.
Bohbot, who was abducted from the 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. In August, his wife, Rivka, gave birth to a daughter, fulfilling a promise that Bohbot made to himself in the tunnels to give his 5-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.”
