Israel marked the third anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Wednesday with solemn ceremonies at the Nova music festival site and in Tel Aviv, even as fresh Israeli strikes in Gaza were a reminder of how far the territory remains from a durable peace a year into a fragile ceasefire.
At the Nova site near the border community of Re'im, families of the roughly 348 young people killed at the all-night party gathered at dawn among memorial posts bearing photographs of the dead and missing. A separate, independently organized "National Memorial Ceremony of October 7 Families" was held at Yarkon Park in Tel Aviv, hosted by freed hostage Eli Sharabi and actress Shani Cohen and arranged by Kumu, a grassroots group formed by bereaved families who say official state ceremonies have politicized their grief.
The commemorations unfolded under heavy security after Israeli strikes near Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City killed at least two Palestinians overnight, according to Gaza's civil defense agency. One of the dead was identified by hospital officials as Mohamed Tamous, a civil defense volunteer. The Israeli military said the strikes targeted militants, a now-familiar justification for the near-daily violence that has continued despite the truce.
Israel's military was placed on high alert for the anniversary, and Defense Minister Israel Katz warned that Gaza would "pay a heavy price" if Israeli forces operating there were harmed, according to Israeli media reports.
A Ceasefire Without Peace
The U.S.-brokered ceasefire that took hold in October 2025 ended the large-scale fighting that followed the original attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel and seized 251 hostages — all of whom have since been returned, dead or alive, under the truce. But the agreement never delivered the broader peace Washington promised. Gaza health officials say more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since the ceasefire began, while five Israeli soldiers have died in the same period.
Talks on the next phase, including the disarmament of Hamas, remain deadlocked: Israel is demanding the group fully disarm before any further withdrawal of its forces, which still control roughly two-thirds of Gaza's territory, while Hamas is pushing for a phased process that does not leave it exposed to continued Israeli attacks. Gaza's roughly two million residents remain overwhelmingly displaced, living in tents and the shells of buildings amid a healthcare and housing crisis that United Nations agencies say has barely begun to be addressed. The Hamas-run health ministry puts the overall Palestinian death toll since the war began at more than 74,000, a figure the UN has described as credible.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called this week for the truce to be turned into a permanent ceasefire, saying it had "brought some relief" but had yet to deliver security, adequate humanitarian aid or a credible path to recovery for Gaza's population.
An Election Shadowed by October 7
The anniversary lands in the middle of an Israeli election campaign, with voting just 20 days away. Polling shows October 7 and its aftermath remain the dominant issue, cited as a very or fairly important factor by roughly two-thirds of Jewish Israeli voters choosing a party. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has leaned into the ceasefire and the return of all hostages as a campaign centerpiece, even as critics — including some bereaved families behind Wednesday's independent Yarkon Park ceremony — accuse his government of still not having answered for the security failures that allowed the attack to happen.
That unresolved reckoning was visible across the day's ceremonies, which mixed grief with open political tension: official state commemorations at military and government sites, and parallel gatherings organized by victims' families who say they still want an independent inquiry into how Israel's defenses failed. For many of the relatives at Re'im and Yarkon Park, the quiet of the ceasefire has not translated into closure.
With Hamas disarmament talks stalled and Israeli strikes continuing inside Gaza even on the anniversary itself, mediators including the United States, Egypt and Qatar are expected to push in the coming weeks for a firmer timetable on the ceasefire's next phase. Until then, officials on both sides say, the war's third year will end much as its second one did: formally paused, but not over.
