Israeli forces launched overnight raids across the West Bank to arrest and question dozens of suspects as airstrikes in Gaza killed three people, according to hospitals there. The Israeli military said its raids targeted people accused of involvement in terrorism and incitement; a report also said some suspects supported the Oct. 7 attack. No further details about the arrests or suspects were available.
The operations came on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, as Israel marked the third anniversary of the Hamas-led attack with ceremonies, renewed strikes on Gaza and a parliamentary election campaign. Elections are scheduled for Oct. 27.
Raids and the Gaza toll
Hospitals in Gaza said Israeli airstrikes killed three people on Wednesday. AFP journalists in Re'im, near the Gaza border, heard loud explosions from Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remained in tents or temporary shelters.
Gaza's Health Ministry, which Hamas controls, said more than 74,200 people had died in the Israeli offensive launched in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attack. The United Nations considers the ministry's figures reliable.
The attack killed 1,221 people, according to an AFP tally, and abductors took 251 people to Gaza, including 44 bodies. At the Nova music festival site in Re'im, victims' relatives observed a minute of silence at 6:29 a.m., when the attack began. More than 360 people died at the festival.
Katia Zohar, whose 23-year-old daughter Bar died at Nova, said: “That was the minute that changed our lives forever.” Zohar recalled that her daughter first called asking her to come get her because missiles were in the air, then called again from the road, screaming that someone was shooting at her. “I remember everything,” Zohar said.
Anna Davitashvili, 53, honored her eldest son, Shaun, who died at Nova at age 25 alongside his friends, by playing the last techno track partygoers danced to during the attack. “I miss him,” she said. Bezalel Slavin, 74, whose daughter also died, now helps his son-in-law, a survivor, raise their three children. “Life must go on, what else can we do?” he said.
Military claims and political scrutiny
A Wednesday Israeli military report said the IDF 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. The report listed missile launches attributed to those countries and territories, including 10,200 from Gaza and 20,000 from Lebanon.
The report said 970 soldiers had died since the war began, more than 70% of wounded soldiers had returned to service, and reserves had grown by about 36%. It also listed nine new divisions formed over the past three years. The IDF's Southern Command, it said, established about 40 new outposts.
Calls continued for an independent commission of inquiry into the 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.”
It aired the channels' coverage from Oct. 7, 2023.