Tel Aviv, Israel CNN —
It was 6:29 a.m. when the explosive music stopped without warning. The brief silence that followed was broken by the screams of a woman somewhere in the crowd in this remote part of the Negev desert.
The woman and hundreds of others were reliving in real time the moment terrorists attacked the Nova music festival in southern Israel. It marked the first anniversary of the October 7 attack in which Hamas and other militant groups killed 1,200 people and kidnapped more than 250. They returned to Gaza.
The brutality of the attack on the festival shocked the world. As revelers danced and partyed in the desert, scores of Hamas terrorists stormed the scene, blocking escape routes and starting a killing spree. They ambushed groups trying to hide and killed those who tried to escape. They shot the victim in a car at close range, then fired indiscriminately with machine guns and anti-tank weapons at the victim who tried to flee on foot.
Over the past year, the site of a massacre just a few miles from the Gaza border has been turned into a memorial.
In place of the vast square are now hundreds of nearly identical cenotaphs, each inscribed with the names and photographs of the victims.
The work commemorating Amit Itzhak David depicts a young man with a wide smile on his face. To mark the anniversary of his death, his family gathered around the memorial on Monday, hugging each other and photos of David.
The 23-year-old was killed here last year shortly after returning from a trip to South America, where he was celebrating the end of his compulsory military service.
David’s cousin, Invar Parnassa, told CNN that the family does not visit the scene often. “It’s too hard to be here and see all this,” she said. Parnassa and the rest of the family all wore matching T-shirts embroidered with David’s name and his favorite gesture, the horn symbol.
Not far away, Amit Magnej’s mother, Anat Magnej, was kneeling on the floor next to his photo, sobbing. Amit, a music lover and former junior wrestler, was also killed at the scene.
The Nova Music Festival massacre was the deadliest of the October 7 attacks, accounting for nearly a third of the victims. There were so many deaths and kidnappings that it took Israeli authorities months to determine how many people were killed there.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Sunday that 347 people, mostly young people, were killed at the scene and about 40 people were kidnapped.
Gabriel Burrell’s mother, three brothers and a close friend from the military all showed up wearing matching tops with his picture on them. Mr. Burrell’s brother Yoda said his family initially thought that Mr. Burrell had survived the attack and had been taken to Gaza.
But their hopes were dashed a few weeks later when Burrell’s body was discovered. After shooting Burrell dead, the attackers set his car on fire. His body was so badly burned that it took weeks to identify him.
Witnesses to the massacre said other victims were also raped and sexually assaulted by Hamas. Although Hamas denies the accusations, evidence of sexual violence has come from a variety of sources, including survivors who witnessed the incidents, first responders, and medical and forensic experts. The United Nations and the International Criminal Court have presented evidence that Hamas attackers committed sexual crimes.
Monday marked the one-year anniversary of the Hamas terrorist attack and one year since Israel began its war with the militants in Gaza.
Since then, more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. The war caused a massive humanitarian disaster, with nearly all of the Strip’s 2.2 million residents evacuated.
As people gathered across Israel, reminders continued to be heard that the war in Gaza was still raging. Loud sounds of gunfire echoed across southern Israel throughout the morning as the Israel Defense Forces attacked targets in the Gaza Strip.
Israel says its goals in Gaza are to eliminate Hamas and bring back the remaining hostages, but neither has been achieved. In fact, as the commemorative events began, several rockets were fired from Gaza toward Israel, injuring two people.
Although increasingly rare, such rocket launches show that militants in Gaza are still capable of attacking Israel after a year of intense war.
During the memorial service at Kibbutz Nir Oz, smoke trails from rockets fired from Gaza were clearly visible in the sky. The agricultural commune, with a population of 400 people, was also the target of the October 7 attack. One in four residents was killed or kidnapped.
Lighting a candle at the grave of his friend Dorev Yehud, Daniel Lifshitz told CNN that everyone in his close-knit community was affected by the attack.
Yehud was a volunteer medic in Nir Oz, but when he noticed the kibbutz was under attack and there were injured people, he rushed to help. He was murdered, but his body was not discovered and identified until June. Yehud’s pregnant wife Shigal and three children survived the massacre. His fourth child was born just nine days later.
Yehud’s sister Albel was kidnapped and taken to Gaza along with her boyfriend Ariel Kunio, Kunio’s brother David, David’s wife Sharon Alony Kunio, and their 3-year-old twin daughters. .
Alony Kunio and the two girls were released in a cease-fire agreement reached in November, but the rest of the group remains in captivity.
“Drev’s sister is still in Gaza. She is one of four or five civilian women still alive. The most important thing now is to bring her and the rest back.” he said.
Lifshitz grew up on a kibbutz, left it at age 16, and still has deep ties to it. His grandparents, Oded and Yocheved, were kidnapped from their kibbutz home during the raid.
Yocheved Lifshitz, who was 85 years old when he was kidnapped, was held captive for more than two weeks. She was released along with her neighbor and friend Nurit Cooper, 79, but both she and Cooper’s husband were detained in Gaza.
Nurit Cooper and her family learned in June that her 84-year-old husband, Amiram Cooper, one of the founders of the kibbutz, was no longer alive. His body is still in Gaza.
“As long as the kibbutz people are still there, we can’t move on. Time has stood still here,” Amat Moshe, whose grandparents lived on the kibbutz, told CNN at the Nir Oz cemetery. Ta.
Last October, Moshe’s grandmother, Adina Moshe, witnessed Hamas fighters storm her home, kill her husband David, and then kidnap him and take him to Gaza. She was released as part of a ceasefire agreement last November.
Adina sat by David’s grave during Monday’s memorial service, sobbing and crouching as if weighed down by the horrors of the past year. Her daughter Maya Shoshani Moshe rushed to her side and tried to comfort her, but she too began crying.
Moshe has previously spoken publicly about his ordeal in Gaza, even making an emotional appeal directly to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to bring back the remaining hostages.
“I repeat, Prime Minister Netanyahu, everything is in your hands. You are the one who can do it. And I am very scared that if you continue down this path… there will be nothing left. ‘The hostages must be released,’ she said in February after Prime Minister Netanyahu rejected the terms of a ceasefire and hostage agreement proposed by Hamas.
She expressed the views of many Israelis who are furious with Prime Minister Netanyahu. Large-scale protests against the prime minister and his government have once again become a common occurrence across the country, with anger erupting in public view several times during Monday’s commemoration events.
Early that morning, hostages’ families marched to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem and set off a siren for two minutes in front of the door.
Prime Minister Netanyahu did not appear at the event or any other gatherings, except for a small ceremony in Jerusalem.
Politics was off-limits Monday night as hundreds of people gathered in Tel Aviv to remember the victims of the attack. But for many of the families who spoke at the event, it quickly became clear that politics was too closely intertwined with the fate of their loved ones.
Jonathan Simriz, the brother of Alon Simriz, a hostage in Gaza who was killed during a failed rescue mission, has called for a national investigation into the handling of the hostage crisis.
“There is no personal example, no vision, no leadership, no accountability,” he told the audience.
