Vigils, protests mark year since Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel : NPR

Memorial services across Israel are taking place Monday, a year on since Hamas’ attacks on communities close to the country’s border with Gaza, and as Israel extends its military response against the group in Gaza as well as on Hezbollah targets to the north in Lebanon.

Twelve months ago, fighters from Hamas, which is designated a terrorist organization by the United States and several other nations, killed around 1,200 people and seized more than 200 hostages from inside Israel, according to the Israeli government.

Israel’s ensuing war in Gaza has killed at least 41,900 Palestinians and wounded more than 97,300, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry on Monday.

In Lebanon, where Hezbollah has fired thousands of rockets on Israel in support of Hamas and Palestinians in Gaza, the death toll from Israeli strikes has risen above 2,000, according to Lebanese officials. Israeli airstrikes continued to pound parts of the capital Beirut overnight into Monday, after rockets launched from Lebanon hit the Israeli port city of Haifa Sunday.

The United Nations says more than 1 million Lebanese have been displaced from their homes, including tens of thousands who have fled across the border into neighboring Syria.

Across the world, candlelight vigils are taking place Monday to commemorate those killed in the surprise Hamas attacks one year ago, with thousands planning to gather, from Tel Aviv to Paris to New York. Marches and protests are also planned to demand a cease-fire, particularly in Gaza.

Talks to produce a cease-fire, which many Israelis hope would see the estimated remaining 101 hostages released by Hamas, are on hold.

Across Israel, memorial events will mark the deadliest day in the country’s history. The government has organized one, another is being led by the family members of Israeli taken hostage or killed, and more are being held in locations close to Gaza where the attacks happened last year.

One of those is at the Nova music festival site, where Israelis gathered Monday to listen to the last track of music played there before Hamas fighters ambushed festival-goers.

A wail in the crowd pierced a moment of silence, as attendees remembered the more than 360 people killed at the site a year ago.

“We tried to wake up from this nightmare, but we cannot,” said Ofir Duchovne, who was there to mourn his 26-year-old friend. “I did not imagine that the war would be so long in Gaza. And now we have another front on the north and with Iran,” Duchovne said. “And we’re stuck. Nothing has changed.”

Nearby, frequent Israeli artillery launched into Gaza was audible, and the Israeli military said it had responded with airstrikes to rockets that had been launched out of Gaza at almost the same precise moment they were a year ago, at the start of the current war.

Sirens wailed across Israel Monday morning as Hamas claimed responsibility for those rockets. Israeli police said two people were injured — though not critically — in the Sdot Dan area near Ben Gurion International Airport. Police were also investigating the site of an explosion in Holon, a suburb of Tel Aviv, but said there were no casualties there. Images on Israeli television showed large, billowing gray smoke rising from the area.

Though the Israeli military said it had sent more troops to Gaza to prevent the possibility of further Hamas attacks to mark Oct. 7, it was the plight of the hostages still held inside Gaza that was central to commemorations in nearby Kibbutz Be’eri, a community close to Gaza where almost 100 residents were killed and more than two dozen hostages seized.

A few hundred community members held a rally next to homes destroyed in the attack, demanding Israel strike a deal with Hamas to free the remaining hostages. “You’re not alone!” attendees chanted, calling out to hostages held across the border in Gaza.

In an auditorium, the names and photos of the kibbutz’s victims were displayed alongside objects that represented them: a pair of ballet shoes; a flute; a motorcycle helmet. The family of Vivian Silver, a Canadian Israeli peace activist killed on Oct. 7, chose to display a baking book of cakes she would use to make for her children and grandchildren’s birthdays.

“Wars do not end in absolute victory or a clear decision, wars end in agreements,” said Merav Svirsky, whose brother Itay Svirsky was taken hostage and then killed in January in Gaza. “The question is, with how many human lives will we pay by then? The lives of soldiers, the lives of civilians and the lives of civilians including our people who are currently hostage in Gaza and have been in immediate life-threatening danger for a year.”

Willem Marx reported from London; Daniel Estrin in Kibbutz Be’er and Tel Aviv, Israel, and Hadeel Al-Shalchi in Tel Aviv. Itay Stern contributed reporting from southern Israel.