Israel Marks Third Anniversary of October 7 Attack as Mourning Mixes With Anger Over Security Failures

Israelis gathered across the country on Wednesday to commemorate the third anniversary of the Hamas-led assault that killed around 1,200 people and triggered the ongoing war in Gaza, with memorial ceremonies held at the sites of the worst atrocities and in cities where grief was intertwined with political protest.

At the Nova dance festival site near Kibbutz Re'im in southern Israel, bereaved families and survivors assembled to honour the 378 people killed there on 7 October 2023. The festival grounds, located not far from the Gaza border, became the deadliest single location in an attack that saw Hamas-led gunmen pour across the frontier at dawn, targeting communities and a desert rave simultaneously.

Forty-four festival-goers were abducted from the site, and 25 of them were eventually returned alive from Gaza, a figure that underscores the complex and protracted hostage crisis that followed the assault. Witness accounts from the attack describe gunmen shooting, torturing and sexually abusing attendees as they fled across open ground, testimony that has since become part of the national trauma.

Ahuva Yavin Mayze, whose 21-year-old daughter Adi was fatally shot at Nova, told the BBC that what unfolded at the site was "dystopic, unimaginable" — a phrase that captures the sense of disbelief that still pervades many Israeli families three years on.

"This is a difficult day, not only for me but for a large part of the nation," said Shlomo Sharf, a former Israeli footballer, in remarks broadcast by Channel 12. He paid tribute to his granddaughter, May Naim, 24, who was killed at the festival. The presence of ordinary public figures like Sharf at anniversary events reflects how broadly the losses of that day reached into Israeli society.

In a particularly wrenching tribute, former hostage Yarden Bibas — whose wife Shiri and two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, were seized from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz and later died in captivity in Gaza — was quoted by the Times of Israel as saying: "Shiri, Ariel and Kfir. Sorry. Sorry that you are up there and I am here." His words have resonated deeply in a country still processing the fate of hostages who did not return.

At Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where 64 residents were killed and 19 taken hostage, crowds filled the community's small cemetery to pay their respects. It was a scene repeated at several kibbutzim along the Gaza periphery, where the scale of loss is measured not in national statistics but in the absence of neighbours and family members.

Zion Regev, a community leader at Kfar Aza, told Reuters that most surviving residents had still not returned home because of the trauma they endured. "This is the first time we are doing all the things here in the kibbutz," he said. "It's a very emotional day, it's a very difficult day for our community, three years after 7 October." The slow, uncertain rebuilding of these communities has become one of the quieter but more enduring consequences of the attack.

Speaking at the national memorial event at Tel Aviv's Yarkon Park on Wednesday evening, Ido Yakir — who reportedly helped fend off the attackers at Kibbutz Magen — praised Israeli troops who "fought so bravely" during the raid. He told the crowd that Israel would remember everyone "who knew that they had to give their lives in order to save others."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a statement released by his office, said he had lit a memorial candle for every victim of the attack and struck a defiant tone. "We will complete the mission: we have settled the score and will continue settling the score with all the murderers," he said. Two days earlier, at a ceremony marking the Jewish calendar's anniversary of the assault, Netanyahu said Israel had killed 4,000 of the 6,000 Palestinians who infiltrated into Israel from Gaza that day.

The prime minister's remarks came against a backdrop of sustained public anger over the security failures that allowed the attack to happen. Protesters in Tel Aviv's Dizengoff Square dyed the fountain red to symbolise blood, adding to a memorial site already covered with photographs, flowers and written messages arranged along the basin wall. The gesture echoed a broader demand for accountability that has persisted since the war began.

Protesters also briefly blocked one of the city's main highways on Wednesday morning to hold a moment of silence. They carried banners reading "the people will remember their sons and daughters," alongside others declaring "a complete failure" and "guilty" next to an image of Netanyahu — a pointed message aimed at a leader many hold responsible for the worst security lapse in Israel's history.

Since the attack, numerous senior Israeli defence and security officials have resigned or been dismissed, yet no independent commission of inquiry has been established to examine how the assault was allowed to occur. The prime minister has rejected any personal responsibility, a stance that has fuelled months of anti-government demonstrations and deepened domestic divisions on a day meant for national unity.

The human cost of the war that followed has been staggering. According to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, more than 74,200 people have been killed since Israel launched its military offensive in response to the attack — figures the United Nations regards as reliable. The 2.1 million residents of Gaza continue to face dire living conditions, and violence has persisted despite a ceasefire agreed almost a year ago.

As Israelis lit candles and stood beside graves on Wednesday, the anniversary laid bare a society still contending with grief, unanswered questions and a conflict whose consequences continue to unfold far beyond the border communities attacked three years ago.