Israeli airstrikes killed three people in Gaza on Wednesday, while hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remained in tents or temporary shelters and Israel marked the third anniversary of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack. Ceremonies remembered people killed and abducted; the military’s anniversary report counted targets struck, officials killed, new divisions and weapons restored. The state’s own accounting shows how the war continues to organize life around military power.
Memory and political failure
At 6:29 a.m., when the attack began, relatives of victims observed a minute of silence at the Nova music festival site in Re'im. More than 360 people died there. Katia Zohar’s 23-year-old daughter Bar was among them. “That was the minute that changed our lives forever,” Zohar told AFP. She recalled Bar calling to ask her to come get her because missiles were in the air, then calling again from the road, screaming that someone was shooting at her. “I remember everything,” Zohar said.
An AFP tally put the death toll from the attack at 1,221; another 251 people were abducted and taken to Gaza, including 44 bodies. Ceremonies were planned at several locations across Israel. Anna Davitashvili, 53, played the last techno track partygoers danced to during the attack in tribute to her eldest son, Shaun, who died at Nova at age 25 alongside his friends. “I miss him,” she said. Bezalel Slavin, 74, whose daughter was killed, helps his son-in-law, a survivor, raise their three children. “Life must go on, what else can we do?”
Calls continued for an independent commission of inquiry into security failures surrounding the attack. Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who has criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for failing to prevent it, attended the Nova commemoration. “It was a colossal failure of the State of Israel,” Bennett said.
At 6:29 a.m., the left-wing opposition Democrats party launched a website broadcasting Israeli news channels’ coverage as it aired on the morning of Oct. 7, 2023. Party leader Yair Golan wrote on X: “We must not allow any entity to reshape our memory. The images of civilians who stood up and acted when the state did not respond.” His words placed civilians’ actions beside the state’s failure as the anniversary unfolded during an election campaign ahead of parliamentary elections on Oct. 27.
The military’s ledger
The IDF said it had attacked nearly 100,000 targets since Oct. 7, 2023: around 65,000 in Gaza, 28,000 in Lebanon and Syria, 4,500 in Iran and 80 in Yemen. Its report listed missile launches attributed to countries and territories and named high-ranking officials killed, including Hassan Nasrallah, Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, Ali Hajizadeh and Hossein Salami. It also described military accomplishments and showed the IDF Paratroopers Brigade operating in the Gaza Strip.
The report said the IDF’s Southern Command established about 40 new outposts. Other changes included a data division in the Intelligence Division, dedicated commands and decentralized authorities in the Air Force, the 96th “Gilead” Division on the eastern border, and the Dead Sea Air Command. The Home Front Command worked on warning and defense capabilities; the Technology and Logistics Division created an “acceleration” program to restore weapons and infrastructure to operational capability.
The military said 970 soldiers had died since the war began, more than 70% of wounded soldiers had returned to service, and reserves had increased by about 36%. It listed nine new divisions established over the past three years. These are the institution’s own measures of what the anniversary has produced: expanded military capacity alongside continuing civilian death and displacement.
Raids and the people under fire
The Israeli military said the IDF and Border Police launched operations across the West Bank overnight Wednesday to arrest and question dozens of suspects accused of involvement in terrorism and incitement. Haaretz’s fetched text said the raids targeted suspects accused of supporting the Oct. 7 massacre. No further details about arrests or the suspects appeared in the fetched material.
Hamas called Oct. 7 “a glorious day in the history of our people.” The group, weakened by the war, still controls parts of the Gaza Strip. Israel launched a major offensive in Gaza in retaliation. The territory’s Health Ministry, controlled by Hamas, says more than 74,200 people have been killed; the United Nations considers its figures reliable. AFP journalists in Re'im heard loud explosions coming from Gaza on Wednesday.
Bruno Retailleau, a candidate for the French presidential election, attended the Nova site and said Hamas had “disfigured” the Palestinian cause with the attack. The ceremonies, military report and West Bank operations show rival authorities speaking in the language of security, memory and national cause. The immediate facts remain concrete: Israeli strikes killed three people in Gaza, Palestinians stayed in temporary shelter, and armed institutions continued to set the terms of daily life.