On October 7 2023, the world changed.
At around 6.30am, thousands of Hamas soldiers – financed and trained by Iran – poured into southern Israel from Gaza. Catching the Israel Defense Forces by surprise, they carried out a series of co-ordinated attacks of extreme brutality on numerous civilian sites, including kibbutzim, music festivals and a beach party.
The details are barbaric.
Parents were shot in front of their children; women gang raped; families burnt alive; the dead mutilated. Young women were blasted repeatedly in the face to ensure maximum disfigurement; there were gunshots to the crotch; legs cut off; knives shoved down throats.
We know this from the testimonies of survivors and first responders – and from the video footage taken by Hamas fighters as they carried out their crimes, broadcast proudly to the world. It was the first move in what was to become not only a military battle, but also a battle for global opinion, fought online, in the media and in the protest-filled streets of cities across the world.
More than 1,200 people were murdered that day, ranging from infants to great-grandmothers and grandfathers unable to escape Hamas’s rampage. It was the worst attack in Israel’s history – and the most deadly attack on Jews since the Holocaust. As Great Britain’s Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, put it: “The atrocities of October 7 2023 will remain seared on our collective Jewish memory for all time. These horrific terror attacks amounted to an assault on the very essence of humanity”.
We never become used to horror. But over the past year, it has felt as though we have come to expect it. Almost every day there is news of some terrible personal tragedy on one or both sides of the border; the death toll in Gaza rises; around 100 Israeli hostages remain held captive in desperate conditions, their welfare unknown; tens of thousands of Israelis from the south and the north remain displaced, refugees in their own country; tens of thousands of Gazans and Yemenis remain refugees in theirs. The Middle East is a region torn apart by war, united in suffering.
Over the course of this year, we have received hundreds – if not thousands – of letters on October 7 and its repercussions. And so, on the one-year anniversary, we take stock of how you, our readers, have seen and experienced the conflict.
On October 7 2023, the world changed.
At around 6.30am, thousands of Hamas soldiers – financed and trained by Iran – poured into southern Israel from Gaza. Catching the Israel Defense Forces by surprise, they carried out a series of co-ordinated attacks of extreme brutality on numerous civilian sites, including kibbutzim, music festivals and a beach party.
The details are barbaric.
Parents were shot in front of their children; women gang raped; families burnt alive; the dead mutilated. Young women were blasted repeatedly in the face to ensure maximum disfigurement; there were gunshots to the crotch; legs cut off; knives shoved down throats.
We know this from the testimonies of survivors and first responders – and from the video footage taken by Hamas fighters as they carried out their crimes, broadcast proudly to the world. It was the first move in what was to become not only a military battle, but also a battle for global opinion, fought online, in the media and in the protest-filled streets of cities across the world.
More than 1,200 people were murdered that day, ranging from infants to great-grandmothers and grandfathers unable to escape Hamas’s rampage. It was the worst attack in Israel’s history – and the most deadly attack on Jews since the Holocaust. As Great Britain’s Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, put it: “The atrocities of October 7 2023 will remain seared on our collective Jewish memory for all time. These horrific terror attacks amounted to an assault on the very essence of humanity”.
We never become used to horror. But over the past year, it has felt as though we have come to expect it. Almost every day there is news of some terrible personal tragedy on one or both sides of the border; the death toll in Gaza rises; around 100 Israeli hostages remain held captive in desperate conditions, their welfare unknown; tens of thousands of Israelis from the south and the north remain displaced, refugees in their own country; tens of thousands of Gazans and Yemenis remain refugees in theirs. The Middle East is a region torn apart by war, united in suffering.
Over the course of this year, we have received hundreds – if not thousands – of letters on October 7 and its repercussions. And so, on the one-year anniversary, we take stock of how you, our readers, have seen and experienced the conflict.