Israel marks one year since October 7 as conflict rages on

Trump calls October 7 'nightmare' on anniversary memorial

Former US President and Republican candidate Donald Trump marked the anniversary of the October 7 attacks, the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust, with a remembrance event at his Doral golf resort in Miami.

"Today we mourn more than 1,200 innocent victims of the October 7 attacks," Trump said, saying that "the nightmare of that day" could not be forgotten.

He claimed that "the October 7 attack would never have happened if I was president."

Trump went on to speak about the rising antisemitismin the US, saying it is "almost as shocking as October 7 itself."

"We never thought we’d see it, certainly not in this country, and a lot of it has to do with the leadership of this country."

Trump himself has associated himself with people known to have used antisemitic rhetoric, including Holocaust-denying white nationalist Nick Fuentes and the rapper formerly known as Kanye West.

Trump also said he believes election day on November 5 will be "the most important in the history of Israel."

Earlier, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris also marked the anniversary of the attacks.

"What Hamas did that day was pure evil -- it was brutal and sickening," Harris said, adding that she was "heartbroken over the scale of death and destruction in Gaza over the past year."



A year after October 7, 'I don't know what Netanyahu is planning,' Israeli author Keret says

On the anniversary of Hamas' October 7 attack, DW spoke to acclaimed contemporary Israeli author Etgar Keret, who is also a prominent critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.

"Well, I think that a year may have passed, but for people who live in Israel, I think we are still trapped in that day. Very, very much like a Groundhog Day, because in this year a lot of events had happened, a lot of deaths, victories, losses, but fundamentally nothing changed," Keret said.

"And more than that, we don't have any sense of [the] future, because when we look at Gaza one year after the war, I don't know what Netanyahu is planning," he continued. "He doesn't share this information with us. He doesn't tell us how does he see Gaza the day after the war ends? And he keeps all the cards to his chest. And in that sense, basically it does nothing, freezes the strategic picture, freezes the political picture, freezes all of our future, while incidents keep rolling on."

Keret also acknowledged that Netanyahu and the Israeli military "had a lot of wonderful successes" in the field in the past year, but said they would be "worth nothing if they are not leveraged to an agreement" on a political level.

He disputed the existence in this context of "total victory," which Netanyahu says is his government's ultimate goal in the conflict, saying: "The idea is not getting a total victory, but it's creating an existence in which we can all live."


Israel will ‘continue to fight,’ Netanyahu tells Oct 7 memorial service

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to fight to victory against Hamas a year after it led terror attacks against his nation.

"Together we will continue to fight, and together — with God's grace — we will triumph," he said in a video message from Ofakim, near the Gaza Strip. The video was played in a ceremony commemorating Palestinian militants’ attacks on the community that killed 40 people.

Netanyahu said his country’s resolve would persist for "as long as the enemy threatens the existence and the peace of our country," and until the remaining hostages were returned home.

He called October 7 "a day of indescribable suffering" for Israel. He also said that Israelis had since united around the defense of the country.

"We have set the war objectives and we are achieving them," he said.

He said these objectives include dismantling Hamas' rule in Gaza, bringing the remaining hostages home and making future attacks from Gaza impossible. They also include a recent addition: ensuring the safe return of Israelis who live near Lebanon’s border.

Netanyahu has faced international criticism, even from Israel’s allies, that achieving those objectives have come at a devastating cost, with nearly 42,000 reported Palestinian deaths in Gaza. Israelis have also mounted regular protests over their government’s failure to agree to a deal for the release of hostages being held in Gaza.


Two ceremonies show Israeli society fractured

Two commemorations of Hamas' October 7 attacks on Israel reveal deep divisions within the country about the government's response.

One, which was held in public and organized by bereaved families,addressed Israel's security failures, as well as the heroism on display that day.

The memorial in Tel Aviv was meant to have tens of thousands in attendance, although it was held in front of a much smaller crowd as gatherings are now limited in size for security reasons.

One of the final speakers was Yonathan Shamriz from kibbutz Kfar Aza, which was among the hardest-hit communities during Hamas' attacks. His brother was taken hostage into Gaza and later killed by Israeli fire as he tried to escape.

"It was a day without an army, without a state — a day where all we had was ourselves, the citizens. This is what abandonment looks like," the Times of Israel newspaper reported Shamriz as saying.

The other event, a recorded ceremony set up by the government, touched more on remembrance, bravery and hope.

The distinction underlines a fissure in public discourse over the darkest day in the country's 76-year history and how it should be remembered.

"You can say it's a war on the narrative," Shamriz, also an organizer of the public ceremony, told the Reuters news agency.

"This memorial will tell the story of what we've been through on the seventh. That there was no army, but there were soldiers. There was no state, but there were citizens. And I think the government memorial will not mention the mistakes that happened."

"The tape of the government, the other memorial, it does not quite reflect how we want to remember what happened on the seventh," he said.

The private ceremony was organized by cabinet minister Miri Regev, a close supporter of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu, in power for most of the past 15 years, has faced heavy criticism for not taking responsibility for security and intelligence failures that led to the October 7 attacks.

The state ceremony was filmed in the small city of Ofakim near the Gaza border, which lost more than 40 of its residents in the Hamas assault.

Ofakim was also a bastion for Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party and his conservative allies in the last election. Smaller communities in the area usually vote more liberal.
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Germany's Steinmeier says war has brought 'too much suffering'

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has said questions have arisen over the direction of Israel's ongoing response to the October 7, 2024, Hamas attacks.

Steinmeier emphasized that it was Germany's responsibility to stand byIsrael when it was attacked.

But he also said: "This war has already killed too many people, brought too much suffering: for Israelis and Palestinians, and now also for the people of Lebanon."

The people of Gaza had experienced immeasurable suffering, flight, hunger, and disease for a year, he said, and there was a question about where the limits to Israel's response lay.

"The questions are getting louder, more pressing, and so is the public debate — less about whether Israel has a right to self-defense, but rather about where the limits of any right to self-defense lie," said Steinmeier.

A reality in which Israelis and Palestinians can live peacefully side by side will not be achieved through military means alone, he added.

Steinmeier, who is Germany's head of state, also warned against the division that the conflict has opened up in Germany itself.

"Grief, anger, helplessness, fear for relatives and friends on both sides — these are the feelings that are troubling many people in our country," he said. "But however upset we may be, we must not lose our compass."

Israel says hit scores of Hezbollah targets in under an hour

The Israeli military says it struck more than 120 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon within a 60-minute period as part of wider extensive strikes on Monday.

"The IAF [air force] conducted an extensive aerial operation and struck over 120 terror targets in southern Lebanon within an hour," the military said in a statement.

It added the targets belonged to the group's elite Radwan forces and other units.