One year since the October 7 attacks
Israel commemorates the victims of last year’s unprecedented attack by the Islamist organization Hamas.
Mihai Pelin, 07.10.2024, 13:50
Israel marks one year since the October 7 attack by Hamas, the bloodiest in the country’s history and which triggered the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip. On that day commandos of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, penetrated to southern Israel, using explosives and bulldozers to pass the barrier that surrounds the Palestinian territory, randomly killing people in kibbutzim, in military bases and at the site of a music festival, on a Jewish religious holiday. The surprise attacks were not directed against an army, as in conventional warfare. Hamas militants took their anger out on civilians.
On that fateful day, hundreds of innocent people died, massacred in their own homes, on the street, or in their cars. The terrorists shot everything that moved around them. Almost 1,200 Israelis were killed in a single day. The brutality shown by Hamas was unprecedented. It was just the beginning of the disaster. Thousands of rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip in a short period of time, and the famous “Iron Dome” anti-aircraft shield could not cope with the pace of the strikes. Cities such as Ashkelon, Ashdod or Tel Aviv strongly felt the impact of the shells. As a result, the Israeli military launched a forceful intervention to eliminate the danger.
Although it managed to stop the Hamas incursion, the army failed to rescue on time 251 civilians taken hostage. Subsequently, the Israeli army launched a strong offensive against the Palestinian territory, with the objective of destroying Hamas, in power since 2007, an organization designated as a terrorist group by the United States and the EU.
The paralysis, on October 7, 2023, for more than eight hours, of the Israeli military’s ability to respond to aggression is still inexplicable. The operation had been secretly prepared for two years and the Israeli intelligence services said they were not aware of the existence of such a plan. In retaliation, Israel vowed to annihilate the Hamas organization. Since the beginning of the war until today, hundreds of Israeli soldiers have lost their lives.
Israel’s objective to destroy Hamas has had an enormous impact on civilians and infrastructure in the Palestinian enclave, one of the most densely populated areas in the world. This ongoing war has killed more than 41,000 people, mostly civilians, according to Hamas, and triggered a major humanitarian crisis.
The expansion of the Israeli colonies to the Palestinian territories, the isolation of the Arab population in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip by erecting separation walls, the strong social exclusion of the Palestinians in the Israeli society, the ethnic segregation in the government institutions and the lack of equal opportunities fuelled the inter-ethnic conflict.
The magnitude of the October 7 attack has been fuelling division and hatred around the world: virulent demonstrations, extreme polarization and an explosion of anti-Semitic acts, to the point where European and American officials recently evoked at the UN “a tsunami of anti-Semitism” in the last year.
