Israeli-Palestinian conflict live updates: Israel marks 3 years since Oct. 7 attack
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Memorials are being held at homes, roadsides, kibbutzim and a music festival site.
Family members of victims of the Oct. 7 attack gather today at the Nova music festival site in Re'im, Israel. Erik Marmor / Getty
What to know
- Three years after 1,200 people were killed in a Hamas-led attack that also saw 251 taken hostage, Israelis are marking the anniversary of an event that traumatized the nation and reshaped the region.
- Memorials for the victims of the Oct. 7 attacks have been held at homes, roadsides, kibbutzim and the Nova music festival site, where militants killed more than 360 people and took 44 hostages.
- The assault triggered Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip, the killing of more than 74,000 Palestinians, famine and widespread devastation. It has since spread into a wider regional conflict reaching Lebanon, Syria and beyond, and fueled intense criticism of Israel around the world.
- Three years later, about 80% of all structures in Gaza are believed to have been damaged, and most of the enclave's more than 2 million residents have been displaced and pushed into less than half the territory’s original footprint. Deadly Israeli strikes continue despite a fragile ceasefire that has largely held for nearly a year.
National memorial ceremony marks anniversary of Oct. 7 attacks
Tens of thousands of people gathered at Yarkon Park in Tel Aviv to attend a national memorial ceremony to commemorate the anniversary of the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023.
Organized by the families of October 7, the ceremony was held for the third year to mourn victims of the attacks.
“One thousand and ninety-six days of loss have passed,” said actress Shani Cohen, who co-hosted the ceremony alongside Eli Sharabi, a former hostage who lost his wife and two daughters in the attacks. “Remembering those who begged for help from within safe rooms engulfed in flames; those who hid in dumpsters, in bullet-riddled restroom stalls, and in shelters packed with people.”
Three years ago, militants led by Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. Israel’s yearslong military offensive in Gaza has killed more than 74,000 people.
Hundreds of bereaved families, hostages and survivors of the attacks participated in the ceremony, sharing their stories of grief, alongside emotional musical performances from well-known Israeli artists.
Herzog says communities hit by Oct. 7 are now rebuilding: 'We shall continue'
Israeli President Isaac Herzog spoke at the memorial ceremony held at the site of the Nova Festival near Re’im in southern Israel, where hundreds of festivalgoers were murdered and abducted during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks three years ago.
"We are here to tell their story and to remember and reflect and reminisce in this solemn day and say to the world, we shall dance again, we shall live again," he said. "This whole region, which was attacked barbarically on October 7, is now rebuilding, and it will double its population in the next few years, and people have chosen to come here and to live here and to say yes, we shall continue."
Herzog called on the international community to support efforts to disarm Hamas and combat Iran.
“We are a nation like all nations. We have the inherent right to defend ourselves and fight terror. But we yearn for peace, and we want our neighbors to live in peace as well,” Herzog said.
Trump's Board of Peace vows no October 7 will happen again
President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace paid tribute to Israelis and Palestinians in a statement today that said it was “striving to create the conditions for a lasting peace through the demilitarization and deradicalization of Gaza.”
The body, which Trump has billed as part of the solution to a series of global conflicts, said in a statement that its effort was “defined by pragmatic solutions, not statements or slogans.”
“Genuine and durable security for Israel is the foundation on which an peace must be built, and it is the surest guarantee that no October 7 will ever happen again,” it added.
Palestinian killed in the occupied West Bank, official news agency reports
At least one Palestinian was killed and 14 injured when Jewish settlers attacked olive farmers near the town of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported today.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said that its teams treated two people for gunshot wounds and three who had been beaten, the news agency reported.
According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), some 6,500 Palestinians have been displaced due to settler attacks in the West Bank since 2023.
Between Jan. 1 and July 24, Israeli forces or settlers killed 76 Palestinians, according to the latest data available from OCHA. Three Israelis were killed over the same period, the data shows.
Israeli documentary ‘NAZA’ charting Gaza killings opens in U.S.
Without a traditional distributor, a documentary that charts the Israeli military’s systematic killing of civilians, arrives in a limited number of U.S. theaters this month after sparking an intense backlash in Israel.
Israelis Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, both Academy Award-winning filmmakers, faced intense backlash at home following the documentary's premiere last month at the Venice Film Festival — where it earned an unprecedented 25-minute standing ovation.
Szor and Abraham pose with the Special Jury Prize Award at the Venice Film Festival. Rocco Spaziani / Mondadori Portfolio via Getty
The documentary, based on insider accounts from Israeli soldiers and intelligence officers, sparked outrage among Israeli officials, even spurring calls to consider criminal charges against the documentarians and strip them of their citizenship.
After showings at New York’s IFC Center, the documentary will open Oct. 9 in cities including Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles and Seattle. It will also be available to stream for free on The Guardian’s website in late November.
“I felt that we have a responsibility, from our position, to also talk to the people who did it themselves and to bring this insider testimony, hoping that this will make the denial of what is happening harder,” Abraham told NBC News last month.
The Israel Defense Forces published a 10-page rebuttal last week, claiming the documentary is “based on substantial factual errors stemming from a misrepresented and manipulative depiction of reality.”
Meanwhile, in an unusual step, Israel's Embassy in the U.S. was promoting a similarly titled documentary, "NAZA: The Real Story," which features senior IDF officials defending their conduct in Gaza.
Who has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza?
The term genocide has increasingly been used by human rights bodies and independent experts to refer to Israel's actions in Gaza following the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas, despite emphatic Israeli and American denials.
Israel has said it abides by international law and the accusation distorts the legal definition of genocide. It also contends that the war in Gaza is an existential conflict with a foe that regularly uses civilians as human shields.
More than 74,000 people have been killed across the Gaza Strip since the war began, according to figures from the Palestinian Health Ministry.
In September 2025, an independent commission established by the U.N. Human Rights Council published a report concluding that Israel had committed genocide, citing widely accepted definitions under long-standing international conventions.
“It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention,” said Navi Pillay, chair of the commission.
"Explicit statements by Israeli civilian and military authorities and the pattern of conduct of the Israeli security forces indicate that the genocidal acts were committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as a group," the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a statement at the time.
In October 2025, the U.N.'s Special Rapporteur for human rights in the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, alleged that the "ongoing genocide in Gaza is a collective crime, sustained by the complicity of influential third states that have enabled longstanding systemic violations of international law by Israel."
Leading Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem also published a report in July 2025 concluding that Israel was committing genocide.
"Statements by senior Israeli officials and actions on the ground prove beyond any doubt that, in Israel’s eyes, the entire population of the Gaza Strip is the target," it said, adding to similar findings from groups including Amnesty International and Physicians for Human Rights Israel.
In November 2024, the International Criminal Court, which can try individuals for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, issued an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, alongside a warrant for deceased Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif.
The warrants did not indicate specific genocide charges, with the charges listed against Netanyahu instead including "crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts."
The United States and Israel do not accept the ICC's jurisdiction.
Somber crowds gather at music festival massacre site
A hush fills the place that three years ago was bursting with music and dancing.
Today, thousands of people are at the site paying their respects to those killed at the Nova music festival near Re’im in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Young and old alike stood solemnly, some alone, some in small groups next to the memorials for their loved ones, which feature a picture and text describing who they were.
People light memorial candles inside a protective glass display box at the Nova music festival site today. Erik Marmor / Getty Images
Some shed tears, others seemed lost in thought as they reflected on the 364, mostly young people who were killed three years ago at the site, which sits close to the border with Gaza. Flags stood at half staff.
One man, who did not wish to be named because he is currently a soldier in the Israeli military, said he was there on the day of the attack, but he managed to get out because his father called him shortly after the attacks began and told him to get out. Seven of his friends died, he said.
Others are keen to talk about their loved ones as they feel the world has not heard enough about the suffering that was inflicted on them that day.
Hamas vows to continue fight against Israel
Hamas today vowed to continue to try and unify Palestinian factions three years after the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023.
In a lengthy statement, the militant group said the attacks it led were a response to decades of aggression by Israel and had shattered illusions about the might of the country’s military.
It vowed to continue trying to unify different Palestinians factions, or political groups.
It also called on the International Criminal Court, which issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu in November 2024, to prosecute the Israeli prime minister, working along with the International Court of Justice.
The statement also said that Hamas was still committed to the ceasefire deal brokered by President Donald Trump last October, while accusing Israel of not honoring the deal.
A total of 1,467 people have since been killed in Gaza despite the ceasefire came into effect, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which operates in the part of Gaza still run by Hamas. Israel says four soldiers have been killed in that time.
Analysis: Flydubai hijacking attempt brings up similar questions to those asked after Oct. 7
Last week’s attempted hijacking of a Flydubai flight to Tel Aviv has Israelis asking what went wrong with their country’s security policies — the same painful question asked so many times after the Oct. 7 attacks.
The initial Israeli reaction to the incident — in which an Omani pilot allegedly attacked the flight’s captain with an axe and tried to seize control of the plane before being overpowered by passengers — was relief. A disaster had been narrowly averted and the passengers who stormed the cockpit were celebrated as heroes.
But in the days since, the public focus has shifted to what appears to be a series of security failures. Under Israeli law, foreign airlines must declare the names of their crewmembers to Israel’s Transport Ministry before they land in Tel Aviv. The Transport Ministry has now acknowledged that while it collects the names of crewmembers, it does not conduct background checks on them.
Such a background check might have detected that the co-pilot had been previously banned from flying in Oman because of his radical views, according to multiple U.S. officials, an Israeli official and a Middle Eastern diplomat.
Israel supporters confront pro-Palestinian marchers in London
Ben Whitley / PA via Getty
A student march in support of Palestinians today in London was met by counterprotesters supporting Israel. Officials had urged students to reconsider holding the march on the third anniversary of the attacks but allowed it to go ahead with restrictions, including a ban on face coverings.
A counterprotester shouts at the marchers. Leon Neal / Getty
Police remove a student demonstrator. Ben Whitley / PA via Getty
Beach art installation 'chilling and beautiful,' Canadian couple says
Standing next to an art installation depicting the bodies of Israelis killed in the October 7 attacks, Tamara Amar called it “chilling and beautiful.”
“There’s just something so beautiful about this,” the 56-year market researcher told NBC News on Tel Aviv’s Trumpeldore Beach, where rows of human figures had been painted in black and yellow.
Amar, who was visiting Israel from Toronto, Canada, with her husband Patrick, 57, said they had learned from their friends in the country that there was still “a lot of pain, a lot of trauma and a lot of backlog in terms, from what I understand, dealing with it.”
An installation on the beach in Tel Aviv marks the third anniversary of the Hamas attacks. Oded Balilty / AP
In some ways “what happened on October 7 is kind of our modern day holocaust,” Patrick said. “To experience it three years later, as if it just happened, it’s bone chilling.”
On the day of the attacks he said he picked up his phone and turned to Tamara and said: “Israel’s been attacked. We are at war.” He added that he “knew this was different.”
Tamara said it was the first time they had visited Israel since the massacre three years ago.
“We wanted to come so many times,” she said. adding that she “felt my soul crushed” by the events. "We're no better off than we were three years ago, and that's the part that I find you know most upsetting,” she added,
But asked about the future Patrick said: “You have to be hopeful, otherwise you’ll sink,” adding that he thought “the future was positive.”
Hard to reflect while 'political catastrophe' continues
The loved ones of many former Hamas hostages “can’t really forgive” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his actions surrounding the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, a vocal figurehead for the families has told NBC News’ “Here’s the Scoop” podcast.
There were "so many chances to stop the war and make a deal to get hostages back and save their lives, and they were missed, and that's what's so hurtful to us," said Gil Dickmann, whose cousin Carmel Gat was killed after 328 days as a captive in Gaza.
Dickmann frequently pressed for a swift deal to secure the hostages’ release.
Netanyahu met with hostage families numerous times throughout the war, and repeatedly vowed that their return was his top priority. But Dickmann said the leader “doesn’t take any responsibility.”
Dickmann also alleges that Netanyahu "didn't want to hear any warnings about what was going on in Gaza" prior to October 7, with his focus instead on the West Bank. Hamas rule in Gaza was seen as preferable to an expanded Palestinian Authority "that may lead to a Palestinian state," he said.
Dickmann said he would mark Oct. 7 by visiting the graves of his murdered relatives, but added that it was hard to focus on memories of them "when we still have this political catastrophe still going on," referring to Netanyahu's government.
He expressed hopes that the Israeli election later this month would bring a new government that could commission an independent inquiry into Oct. 7, the events leading up to it and the war in Gaza.
Satellite imagery highlights devastation in Gaza
Recent satellite images have captured the devastation across the Gaza Strip after Israel’s yearslong military offensive.
Tal al-Sultan, near Gaza's southern city of Rafah, in 2022, 2024 and 2026. Google Earth; Google Maps
The Google satellite imagery spread on social media this month. A spokesperson for Google told NBC News it was last updated in June.
Israel has heavily restricted access to the Palestinian enclave since launching its offensive after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack, with international journalists blocked from entering aside from brief and strictly controlled media tours facilitated by the Israeli military.
Flydubai case raises similar security questions to those about Oct. 7
Last week’s attempted hijacking of a Flydubai flight to Tel Aviv has Israelis asking what went wrong with their country’s security policies — the same painful question asked so many times after Oct. 7, 2023.
Passengers and crew were hailed as heroes after they managed to subdue the alleged attacker, identified by NBC News as Omani national Hamman al-Hamammi.
The co-pilot had allegedly attacked Capt. Smit Machchhar with a cabin axe before trying to take control of the aircraft’s flight controls, sending the plane plummeting.
The jet, which was carrying 174 passengers, most of them Israeli, was stabilized and landed safely in what some of those onboard have described as a "miracle."
But in the days since, the public focus has shifted to what appears to be a series of security failures.
Under Israeli law, foreign airlines must declare the names of their crew members to the Israeli Transport Ministry before they land in Tel Aviv.
The ministry has now acknowledged that while it collects the names of crewmembers, it does not conduct background checks on them.
The co-pilot accused in the attack had been previously banned from flying in Oman because of his radical views and had posted on social media about killing Jews, according to multiple U.S. officials, an Israeli official and a Middle Eastern diplomat.
Beach art installation brings back vivid memories for American woman
Trumpeldor beach in central Tel Aviv, packed and lively just yesterday, is today almost empty.
The white sand has been covered with an enormous installation commemorating the Oct. 7 attacks and designed to be visible to passengers on planes overhead as they make their final descent towards Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport.
It is made up of row after row of black cloth onto which life-sized figures have been painted. Yellow figures represent the hostages and white figures represent those killed.
A memorial on Trumpeldor beach in Tel Aviv today. Shira Pinson / NBC News
There are also three orange figures in memory of Shiri Bibas, 32, and her two children, Ariel, 4, and 9-month-old Kfir, who were killed in captivity in Gaza.
The scene is somber and still. Visitors and passersby slow down, take pictures, talk in low voices. The emotions are evident.
“Today it's so quiet, and it's so somber, and it's so…. You feel the sadness in the air,” Nava, a 69-year-old visiting Israel, told NBC News, her voice trembling.
“I didn't think I'd get so emotional because it's been time,” she said, adding that “to see so many bodies” laid out on the beach had an impact.
“For that many people to have been killed in one day, and so brutally,” she said. “It brings it all back how unfair and awful it is because all we want is peace.”
Fighting back the tears, she said the memory of that day three years ago was still very vivid. “We woke up in the morning, and we heard the news, and it was torture. It was absolute torture.”
Photos: Funeral for slain teen in Gaza
Mourners today gathered for Nimr Berbah’s funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza. The 16-year-old was shot in the head and killed when the Israeli army opened fire near the Abu Hamid Junction, east of Khan Younis.
Mourners carry Nimr's body during his funeral in Khan Younis today. Abed Rahim Khatib / Anadolu via Getty
Relatives gather around the teen's body at Nasser Hospital. Abed Rahim Khatib / Anadolu via Getty
Funeral prayers for Nemr outside Nasser Hospital. Abed Rahim Khatib / Anadolu via Getty
There doesn't have to be a competition over suffering, grieving mother says
There “doesn’t have to be a competition of tears” between Israelis and Palestinians over who has suffered the most since the Hamas-led attacks Oct. 7, 2023, the mother of a slain hostage says.
“No one’s analyzing whose tears are the saltiest,” Rachel Goldberg-Polin told NBC News yesterday, a day before the third anniversary of the abduction of her son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, from the Nova music festival in southern Israel.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin and her husband, Jon Polin. Greg Kahn for NBC News
“This is the way it always goes and it’s with conflict in world history and currently in this neck of the woods,” she added.
Hersh was among six hostages held by Hamas whose bodies were recovered in a tunnel under Gaza’s southern city of Rafah in September 2024. Born in the U.S., he had moved to Israel with his family when he was 7.
“As humans, we want to cheer for one team, red or blue. Pick your side,” the grieving mother said. “There are people suffering on all sides.”
“And until we make a very elevated, concerted decision that we’re not going to play into those tropes, we will continue doing this,” she added.
Solemn memorials play out as Israeli election looms
Today’s solemn memorials are playing out against the backdrop of a heated Israeli election in which the Oct. 7 attack and its aftermath is one of the main themes.
In just 20 days, Israelis will head to the polls to decide whether to return to power Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the man who led Israel on the day of the Hamas-led attacks and in the tumultuous years since.
Netanyahu’s opponents accuse him of a litany of failures before and after that fateful day. They say he unwisely allowed Qatari money to flow into Gaza in a bid to keep Hamas quiet. They accuse him of ignoring warnings from the United Arab Emirates that Hamas was planning a major attack. And they say he has rejected calls for a 9/11 Commission-style public inquiry because the findings of such an investigation would damage him politically.
An election banner reads "Netanyahu fights for everyone" near Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank yesterday. Zain Jaafar / AFP via Getty
Netanyahu has blamed military and security chiefs for the failure to prevent the attacks and denies he received any concrete warnings from the UAE about Hamas’ plans.
His election message is that Israel has bounced back and taken the fight to Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebano, and its longtime opponent Iran.
“The state of Israel is the strongest country in the Middle East, and our enemies are weaker than ever,” he said at a Cabinet meeting yesterday.
A poll published this week by the Israeli Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem-based think tank, found 62% of Israelis say that the attacks will be a key factor in their decision on who to vote for.
But polls show neither the pro-Netanyahu nor the anti-Netanyahu bloc on a clear path to a majority in the Knesset, Israel's parliament.
'You never heal the trauma'
In the three years since kibbutz Nir Oz was stormed by Hamas-led militants, Lucas Cunio told NBC News, he has coped but “you can never heal the trauma.”
“Sometimes I close my eyes and I see the road in the kibbutz and everything is burning and not easy,” he said, “When I go to sleep, sometimes I can see it. It’s really hard.”
Tributes outside a destroyed home in kibbutz Nir Oz last year. Ohad Zwigenberg / AP
Less than 2 miles from the fenced-off border with Gaza, Nir Oz was one of the areas hit hardest when Hamas militants stormed through southern Israel. About a quarter of the 400 residents who lived here were killed or kidnapped, including two of Cunio's brothers, Ariel and David Cunio.
Both were freed after more than two years in captivity Oct. 13, 2025.
Cunio said he had joined a surfing club to help with his mental health.
"You really feel yourself again," he said. "You don’t think you don’t feel your just you your board and the water."
Hamas military wing praises attacks
A spokesperson for Hamas' military wing, the Qassam Brigades, offered a salute “steeped in glory and pride” to the fighters who took part in the Oct. 7 attacks.
Briefly acknowledging the “steep” price on the people of Gaza, Abu Obaida said they would be remembered for altering the face of history and the global balance of power. Since the attack and the ensuing war in Gaza, around 74,000 Palestinians have been killed and the majority of its population driven from their homes.
Abu Obaida also praised Iran for its support, as well as militant groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
Drones, he added, had “shattered the enemy’s peace of mind.”
Four people killed in Gaza over the past 24 hours
Four people have been killed in Gaza over the past 24 hours, according to the latest figures from the Palestinian Health Ministry in the enclave. A fifth succumbed to previous injuries, the ministry said.
A total of 1,467 people have been killed despite a ceasefire came into effect last October, according to the ministry which operates in the part of Gaza still run by Hamas. Israel says four soldiers have been killed in that time.
A funeral ceremony last week for Palestinians recovered from the rubble of buildings in the Al-Tajj district of Gaza City. Ahmad Salem / Bloomberg via Getty
Palestinian authorities say more than 74,000 people have been killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza, launched after Hamas-led fighters killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel in October 2023.
Photos: Commemorations in Tel Aviv
Israelis came together across several Tel Aviv locations this morning to pay their respects to the victims of the Oct. 7 attacks. Pictures show commuters conducting a moment of silence on the highway, the Dizengoff Fountain filled with red dye and a memorial beach installation honoring lives lost in the 2023 attacks.
Jack Guez / AFP via Getty
Jack Guez / AFP via Getty
Jack Guez / AFP via Getty
Oded Balilty / AP
2025 was the deadliest year for antisemitic attacks in three decades, ADL report shows
Last year was the deadliest year for antisemitic attacks in more than 30 years in the seven countries with the largest Jewish populations outside of Israel, according to a July report from the Anti-Defamation League.
Violent incidents in the U.S., U.K., Argentina, Australia, Canada, France and Germany were up 97% in 2025, compared to 2022, the year before the Hamas-led attack on Israel, the report found. Total antisemitic incidents were up by 136%, the report showed.
A total of 20 people were killed in antisemitic attacks last year including the 15 who were murdered in a mass shooting on Bondi Beach in the Australian city of Sydney.
Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky. @IsraelinUSA / X
In the U.S., two Israeli Embassy staffers Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, were killed at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington and 82-year-old Karen Diamond, who died from injuries sustained in a firebomb attack on a group of demonstrators advocating for the release of Israeli hostages.
Two men, Adrian Daulby and Melvin Cravitz, were also killed in the U.K. when a synagogue in Manchester was attacked on Yom Kippur.
Germany was found to have “the highest rate of antisemitic incidents per Jewish capita: nearly 70 per 1,000 Jewish residents in 2025,” the report said, adding that was “nearly five times Australia’s rate, six times the U.K.’s rate, and nearly 70 times the U.S. rate.”
Israeli kibbutz where 80 were killed marks the anniversary
Residents of kibbutz Kfar Aza held a memorial at 6:29 a.m. to mark the exact time Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Hamas killed 80 people and kidnapped another 19 that day from the sleepy, sun-drenched hamlet in southern Israel.
Hamas assault is 'central' issue in Israel's upcoming election, poll finds
A majority of Israelis say the 2023 Hamas assault will be a central issue for them in the country’s Oct. 27 election, according to a poll by the Israel Democracy Institute.
The poll found that the events of Oct. 7, 2023, were a “very central” or “fairly central” issue for 62% of those surveyed, including 68% of Jewish Israelis and 32% of Arab Israelis. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is seeking to stay in power, has been criticized over the lack of an official inquiry into the attacks, as well as reports that he was warned about them in advance.
“October 7 is casting a long shadow over Israel’s upcoming elections,” said Yohanan Plesner, the institute’s president. “Questions of security, accountability and whether the lessons of the attack have truly been learned will weigh heavily on many voters as they make their choice.”
The survey was conducted from Aug. 31 to Sept. 3, with 605 people interviewed in Hebrew and 150 in Arabic, the institute said.
The first anniversary without any Israeli hostages in Gaza
This is the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks that there are no Israeli hostages — living or dead — still inside Gaza.
The last living hostages were returned to Israel on Oct. 13 last year, and the body of the final captive, 24-year-old police officer Ran Gvili, was recovered in January this year, bringing a formal end to Israel’s 843-day hostage crisis. As a result, this is also the first anniversary where the country is not plastered with hostage posters.
Mourners at the Nova festival site today. Erik Marmor / Getty
The posters seemed to cover nearly every free inch of wall or lamppost across Israel in the weeks after the 2023 Hamas assault, and they stayed up for years afterward. The images formed a grim honor guard in the main hallway at Ben Gurion Airport, and were the last thing a foreign visitor would see before boarding a flight home.
Now, the hostage posters are finally down. But stickers remembering some of the 1,200 people killed are still common.
Vigils are held across Australia as anniversary of Bondi Beach attack looms
Hundreds of people attended a vigil at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, where 15 people were killed in December in a shooting attack at a Hanukkah event, observing a moment of silence at 6:29 a.m. local time to mark the start of the 2023 Hamas assault on Israel.
Other commemorations are being held across the country, including pro-Palestinian vigils that have been criticized by politicians and Jewish groups. Israel’s war in Gaza has been deeply divisive in Australia, which has experienced a surge in both antisemitism and Islamophobia since the conflict began.
In a statement, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australia “stands with the Jewish community here and across the world.”
“We stand against antisemitism and racism in all its forms because it goes against who we are,” he said, calling for the disarmament of Hamas and progress toward a two-state solution.
Albanese said the approaching first anniversary of the Bondi Beach attack “compounds the pain” of those commemorating the Hamas assault.
“For so many, no day since has been easy, but anniversaries fall with their own terrible weight,” he said.
Mourners gather at Nova music festival on third anniversary of Oct. 7 attack
Mourners remembered their lost loved ones at the Nova music festival site near kibbutz Reim, southern Israel, this morning to commemorate the third anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks.
Raz Zarfati, sister of Ron Zarfati, who was killed at the Nova music festival. Ohad Zwigenberg / AP
Ohad Zwigenberg / AP
Ohad Zwigenberg / AP
John Wessels / AFP via Getty
'Grief doesn't get better'
The mother of Israeli American Hersh Goldberg-Polin who was found dead in Gaza almost 11 months after he was taken from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023, told NBC News the grief “doesn’t get better.”
“It might get different,” said Rachel Goldberg-Polin. “I’m hopeful that it will get different.”
But the “reality of what happens is that time makes you more hungry or more thirsty for your person,” she said.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin with his parents, Rachel and Jonathan. Courtesy Goldberg-Polin family
Hersh was among six hostages held by Hamas whose bodies were recovered in a tunnel under Gaza's southern city of Rafah in September 2024. Born in the U.S. he moved to Israel with his family when he was seven.
Goldberg-Polin feared the grief was “going to get worse” because “that yearning, that longing, that craving is forever,” she said.
“A couple of weeks ago, I was just crumpled on the floor and I was crying, and my daughter said to me that she came across me and she said, ‘What happened?’”
“I just looked up and I said, ‘I haven’t seen my son in three years.’”
Israelis abroad told to exercise 'heightened vigilance'
Israel's National Security Council has warned Israelis living abroad to exercise "heightened vigilance" amid an "increased risk of attempted attacks against Israelis and Jews abroad," on the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks.
In a statement issued by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, the public was urged to "refrain from posting details about travel plans abroad on social media in advance," as well as "posting content on social media that indicates service in the security forces."
Travelers were also urged to avoid traveling to Jordan, Qatar, Somaliland and Egypt and "minimize speaking Hebrew in crowded areas."
Extraordinary thing about my son was he was 'totally ordinary,' grieving mom says
The extraordinary thing about her son was that he was “totally ordinary,” the mother of Israeli American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin told NBC News.
Three years after he was taken from the Nova music festival in southern Israel, Rachel Goldberg-Polin said there was “always a temptation, especially when young people are killed in tragic ways, to mythologize them or lionize them.”
But for her, Hersh “was the perfect match,” she said.
Hersh was among six hostages held by Hamas whose bodies were recovered in a tunnel under Gaza’s southern city of Rafah in September 2024. Born in the U.S., he moved to Israel with his family when he was seven.
“I think what’s extraordinary about Hersh is that he is totally ordinary,” Goldberg-Polin said, adding that he was “filled with beauty and filled with flaws.”
Rachel Goldberg in 2024. Vanessa Leroy / NBC News
Israel begins commemorations with a nationwide moment of silence
Israel marked the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks with a nationwide moment of silence at 6:29 a.m. local time (11:29 p.m. Tuesday ET), the exact time the Hamas assault began in 2023.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog and first lady Michal Herzog lighting a memorial candle at the president’s residence in Jerusalem this morning. Office of President Herzog
At the president’s residence in Jerusalem, President Isaac Herzog and first lady Michal Herzog lit a memorial candle to open the day’s commemorative events.
