Warning: Graphic content REIM, Israel — On a field where music festival revelers were gunned down by Hamas-led militants three years ago, Israelis on Wednesday embraced and wept for those lost in an attack that plunged the Middle East into war. Israelis mourned at the site of the Nova Music Festival, as well as at bomb shelters, intersections and in communities targeted on Oct. 7, 2023. Tens of thousands gathered in Tel Aviv for the main ceremony organized by bereaved families, separate from the official government ceremonies. On that day — the deadliest in the country’s history — militants killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostage. Israel’s retaliatory offensive killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, destroyed much of Gaza and drove most of its two million residents from their homes. This is the first anniversary since all the hostages, living and dead, were returned. Signs calling for their return are mostly gone, but reminders of those who were killed are ubiquitous in a country still reckoning with the trauma of that day. For Palestinians, the anniversary brings another day of fear and misery. Most Gaza residents live in squalid tent camps, with large parts of cities bombed to rubble. More than half the territory remains in the hands of the Israeli military. Despite a ceasefire deal reached nearly a year ago, Israeli strikes continue almost daily. Israeli troops occupy a large chunk of southern Lebanon in their conflict with Hezbollah militants, who began firing on Israel in 2023 in support of Hamas. Iran, the United States and their allies are locked in a confrontation that has seen attacks across the region and has shaken the global economy — a conflict that Israel helped launch and that the war in Gaza paved the way for, even if the two conflicts weren’t directly connected. Families mourn at the festival site Hundreds of people paid their respects to the more than 350 people killed in and around the festival site. Videos from that day showed militants gunning down fleeing revelers, shooting the wounded at point-blank range and ambushing those seeking refuge in bomb shelters. On Wednesday, survivors’ relatives hugged at 6:29 a.m. — the exact time the first rockets were launched three years ago — as explosions boomed in nearby Gaza. Anya Davitashili, who lost her 25-year-old son, Sean, said she visits the site every Saturday. It’s where she feels closest to him. “I have a video of him dancing here that ends at 6:29 in the morning. It’s in front of my eyes all the time,” she said. “Every morning, you wake up and there is just endless missing.” Larger ceremonies took place in the evening at the Nova site and in Tel Aviv, which paid tribute to both the people who were killed as well as those who responded and were forever changed, including doctors who helped identify bodies at the main forensics facility and a bus driver who took his own life after the attack, overcome by the devastation he had seen. “We will bear witness and tell the story of the day the sky fell upon us,” said Eli Sharabi, who was held captive in Gaza for 16 months and lost his wife, two daughters, and brothers. A released hostage marks his first Oct. 7 Elkana Bohbot, 37, is marking the anniversary in Israel for the first time since his release after 738 days of captivity. For most of that time, he said, he was held underground in a dark, damp tunnel. Bohbot, who was abducted from the festival, was kept in a small cell with other hostages, given little food and allowed to bathe only every few weeks, he said. His captors forced him to take part in propaganda videos, including one where he acted out a fake call to his family. In the year since his release, Bohbot has undergone physical and emotional rehabilitation. In August, his wife, Rivka, gave birth to a daughter, fulfilling his promise to himself in the tunnels to give his 5-year-old son, Reem, a sibling. The newborn Michele is “not a symbol for my people, she is more of a symbol for the enemy,” Bohbot told The Associated Press. “This child is the message for you that we were here and we will always be here forever.” Palestinians in Gaza live among the ruins No events are expected Wednesday in Gaza, but Hamas in a statement defended their deadly Oct. 7 attack, saying it had returned the Palestinian cause to the world’s attention. “The conflict with the enemy did not begin on that day, (and) its final chapters are not written yet,” it said. Palestinians in the territory said their suffering over the past three years had previously been unimaginable. “We witnessed death, destruction, and bombardment that we had never known before,” said Walid Akram, a Gaza City resident who, like most in Gaza, has been displaced by the war. Raed Khozeiq’s coastal neighbourhood in Tel al-Hawa was largely flattened. Nothing about his life now is the same, he said. “No country in the world has gone through what we have experienced here,” he said. “A war of extermination, starvation, the absence of schools and universities — nothing remains.” More than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its figures but says around half were women and children. The numbers from the ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. While a ceasefire that took effect Oct. 10, 2025, halted the heaviest fighting, Israeli strikes have continued, targeting what Israel says are Hamas militants. Since the ceasefire, 1,460 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the ministry. Five Israeli soldiers have been killed in attacks in that period. Restrictions on the entry of goods and aid have contributed to a hunger crisis, food security experts say. Middle East has been reordered A contentious election at the end of the month hangs over this year’s anniversary in Israel. Voters are bitterly divided over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership, his role in the security failures surrounding the attack and his refusal to launch an official inquiry into them. The attack set in motion a cascade of events that led to wars across the Middle East as Israel confronted Hamas, Hezbollah and their backer, Iran. Israel has seized swaths of territory in Syria and Lebanon, where more than 300,000 Lebanese remain displaced. The United States joined Israel in attacking Iran’s military and nuclear program in two rounds, battering Iran and upending global markets far from the battlefield. Violence has also risen across the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Israel’s far-right government has heightened restrictions on Palestinians while emboldening extremist settlers who have attacked them and destroyed their property. Associated Press journalists Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, and Sam Metz in Jerusalem contributed to this report. Melanie Lidman, The Associated Press
