AS Israel marks the first anniversary of the October 7 attack by terror group, Hamas, President Isaac Herzog has called on the world to support the country in the fight against its enemies and terrorists in general.
Speaking on Monday, October 7, at the 2023 Nova music festival, near the Gaza border, during the start of a three-day memorial journey to the massacre locations to mark one year since the Hamas terrorist attack, Herzog said: “This is a scar on humanity. This is a scar on the face of the Earth.”
Recall that terrorists from the Palestinian Islamist group, Hamas, and other extremist groups, stormed across the border exactly one year ago, killing over 1,200 people at the festival in southern Israel and around 250 were taken hostage to the Gaza Strip.
The attack provoked the Israeli bombardment and invasion of the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. This triggered the Gaza war, in which, according to the Hamas-controlled health authority, some 42,000 Palestinians have been killed so far, mostly civilians.
The figures cannot be independently verified and Hamas does not distinguish between militant and civilian deaths.
Tensions since then have rocketed and brought the Middle East region to the brink of a wider conflict.
Herzog said the world has to realise and understand that in order to change the course of history and bring peace, it must support Israel in its battle against its enemies, adding: “We are fighting the battle of the free world.”
While the nation unites in mourning, the country is also divided in its approach to the services. Relatives of the hostages are organising their own memorial rally in Tel Aviv at the time of the first shots being fired that morning.
Later, the Israeli government would broadcast a memorial service that has been pre-recorded in southern Israel.
In view of security regulations in force due to the threat of rocket attacks, only a maximum of 1,000 people are allowed to attend on site.
The memorial services would be broadcast on the Internet and on special television programmes.
Israel’s Army Chief of General Staff, Herzi Halevi, has referred to October 7, 2023, as the day “when we failed in our mission to protect the citizens of the State of Israel.”
In a letter to Israeli soldiers marking the anniversary of the brutal attack on Israel, he wrote: “October 7 is not only a day of remembrance, but also a call for deep introspection, a recognition of our failures and a commitment to learning from them.”
Halevi said Hamas’ military wing had been defeated, but that the fight against the organisation’s terrorist structures would continue.
On the fighting against Hezbollah in Lebanon, he said the militia had been dealt a serious blow, adding: “We will not stop. We are destroying our enemies’ capabilities and we will ensure that these capabilities are not rebuilt, so that October 7 is never repeated.”
Meanwhile, Israeli military said it had attacked Hamas command centre located in the Deir al Balah area in central Gaza embedded within the Shuhada al-Aqsa hospital on Monday.
In the same area, the IDF had earlier said it attacked Hamas command centres that had been located in a former school and a former mosque.
The information could not be independently verified, but the IDF said numerous measures had been taken to reduce the risk to civilians before the “precise” attack, adding that the command centres were used to plan and carry out terrorist attacks against Israeli soldiers and the state of Israel.
The IDF said this was another example of what it called the systematic misuse of the civilian infrastructure by Hamas, violating international law.
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