Israel marks third October 7 anniversary amid accountability disputes

Israel held ceremonies and mourning gatherings to mark three years since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack. The commemorations were the first October 7 anniversary held after all Israeli hostages, living and dead, had been returned. They came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to retain power in the October 27 election amid deep divisions over his leadership and his refusal to establish an official inquiry into the attack.

The deaths and abductions remained central to calls for an official accounting of the attack.

Calls for an inquiry

At a second official memorial event, a bereaved father interrupted Netanyahu's speech to accuse him of negligence. Former hostage Keith Siegel called for an independent investigation to establish how the attack happened and prevent another catastrophe. He said the scale of the killing, injuries and trauma made it necessary for Israel to understand the failure.

“I'm living a kind of dual life. I'm here for some of the time, and I'm in Gaza some of time”

Siegel spent 484 days in Hamas captivity in Gaza. His description of life after his return underscored the continuing trauma behind calls for accountability.

Aviva Siegel said, “Getting ready for the anniversary has been very very painful. The last couple of weeks all I want to do is cry.”

Pre-attack warnings

NPR reported that four Middle East sources with direct knowledge said Netanyahu and Israeli security agencies had received repeated warnings of a potential Hamas attack before October 7. Nimrod Novik described one warning as an urgent message from Egypt delivered about 10 days before the attack.

A separate account did not describe a potential attack. Sufian Abu Zaida, a former Palestinian Authority official, said Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar dictated a message for him to deliver to Israel on September 14, 2023. Abu Zaida said the message warned of an impending “earthquake” in negotiations, rather than describing a potential attack.

Netanyahu denied reports alleging pre-attack warnings, called them false and filed a defamation lawsuit.

Naftali Bennett described October 7 as a colossal failure by a state founded to defend Jews. He contrasted that institutional failure with individual Israelis who came to fight, protect people and save lives.

Gaza's continuing toll

In Gaza, Al-Shifa Hospital reported that two people were killed in an Israeli strike overnight as the commemorations took place.

Gaza's Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its casualty figures. U.N. agencies and independent experts see the ministry's numbers as generally reliable despite that limitation.

The war that followed October 7 spread beyond Gaza, including Israeli operations involving Hezbollah and Iran and U.S. strikes on Iran. A ceasefire in Gaza that took effect on October 10, 2024, halted the heaviest fighting, but Israeli strikes have continued.

Since the ceasefire, Gaza's Health Ministry reported more than 1,400 Palestinians killed. The Seattle Times also reported five Israeli soldiers killed in attacks since the ceasefire.

Associated Press reporting said most of Gaza's roughly 2 million residents were living in tent camps or amid extensive urban destruction. The reporting described mass displacement as accompanied by hunger and continuing insecurity, while strikes continued.

Claims and responses over the war

An independent UN inquiry concluded that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. Separately, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in November 2024, accusing him of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Israel's government denied the inquiry's genocide conclusion in a video posted on its official X account. It argued that Israel had warned civilians to evacuate, facilitated food, water and medicine, and was fighting Hamas infrastructure embedded in civilian areas. The government said Hamas disarmament was necessary for the war to end.

Separately, Hamas praised the October 7 attack as heroic and said it had returned the Palestinian cause to international attention. The group portrayed the attack as a response to decades of Israeli occupation, land seizures and settlement construction, and said the conflict would not end with that date.

Rebuilding and remembrance

Yonatan Zeigen argued that peace required political will, an end to occupation and an end to civil inequality. Shlomo Margalit made the case for coexistence on practical grounds: neither Israelis nor Palestinians were going away, so they needed to find a secure way to live together.

Sigal Manzuri, whose daughters were killed at the Nova festival, said bereaved families should pursue love and remembrance rather than violence. She viewed the election as a chance to begin healing and repair, and founded a support project in her daughters' memory.

In Nir Oz, 47 people were killed and 76 taken to Gaza—together, more than a quarter of the small community.

Residents were weighing rebuilding against preserving evidence of the attack.