Israelis on Wednesday, 7 October 2026, marked the third anniversary of the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023 with ceremonies at the Nova music festival site, shelters, road junctions and residential communities that came under attack, while Palestinians in the Gaza Strip observed the occasion amid widespread destruction, displacement camps and an ongoing humanitarian crisis.
Anniversary ceremonies held at attack sites
Hundreds gathered at the Nova festival site near Kibbutz Re’im to commemorate more than 350 people killed at and around the site during the attack. Relatives of the victims embraced and wept at 6:29am, the moment the first rockets were launched three years ago, while explosions could be heard from the nearby Gaza Strip.
Events also included ceremonies in Kfar Aza and Nahal Oz, as well as in roadside shelters near the Gaza border, and a memorial installation set up on Tel Aviv’s seafront. Participants carried Israeli flags, while civilians and soldiers attended memorial services for those killed and missing in the areas that came under attack.
Anya Davitashvili, whose 25-year-old son Shawn was killed at the festival site, said she visits the place every Saturday because it is where she feels closest to him. Families of victims and survivors gathered in the area to mark the anniversary and recall the attack on festival-goers and the shelters where those fleeing sought refuge.
Elkana Bohbot, 37, also marked 7 October in Israel for the first time since his release after 738 days in captivity. Bohbot, who was taken from the Nova festival, said he spent most of his captivity underground in a dark, damp tunnel, held with other detainees in a small room and given limited amounts of food.
He added that he was allowed to shower only once every few weeks and that his captors forced him to appear in propaganda recordings, including one in which he acted out making a fake call to his family. During the year after his release, Bohbot underwent physical and psychological rehabilitation. In August 2026, his wife Rivka gave birth to a daughter named Michelle, after he had promised himself while in the tunnels that he would give his five-year-old son Reem a brother or sister.
Hamas statement and Gaza residents’ suffering
Bohbot said his daughter represented a message to those who held him that they were staying on their land. In the Gaza Strip, no events were announced to mark the anniversary, while Hamas issued a statement defending the 7 October attack and saying it had returned the Palestinian cause to the world’s attention.
The group added that the conflict did not begin on that day and that its final chapters had not yet been written. Most of Gaza’s roughly two million residents live in tent camps set up on beaches, former farmland and vacant spaces, after wide areas of cities and neighbourhoods were destroyed.
Strikes continue as Palestinian death toll rises
Israeli forces still control more than half of the territory, while strikes continue almost daily despite a ceasefire agreement that took effect on 10 October 2025. Waleed Akram, a Gaza City resident who was displaced like most people in the Strip, said Palestinians had witnessed death, destruction and bombardment on a scale they had never known during the past three years.
Raed Khazeeq, whose coastal neighbourhood of Tal al-Hawa suffered extensive destruction, described what happened as a war accompanied by starvation and the absence of schools and universities, saying his life was no longer as it had been. Gaza’s Health Ministry said more than 74,000 Palestinians had been killed since the war began. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures, but says women and children make up about half of the dead.
United Nations agencies and independent experts generally regard the ministry’s figures as reliable. According to the ministry, 1,460 Palestinians in the Strip have been killed since the ceasefire began, while five Israeli soldiers were killed in attacks during the same period.
Israel says its strikes target Hamas members, while food security experts say restrictions on the entry of goods and aid have contributed to worsening hunger. Images taken on the eve of the anniversary show Palestinians walking among destroyed buildings in Gaza City and residents using fires to cook inside damaged homes.
Israeli elections and repercussions of the regional war
Najwa Abu Aita, who was wounded in an Israeli forces’ bombardment and lost her seven-year-old daughter in 2024, was also shown inside a tent in the Nuseirat camp in the central Strip. The anniversary falls ahead of Israeli elections scheduled for the end of October 2026, amid divisions over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership and his responsibility for the security failures that preceded the attack, as well as objections to his refusal to establish an official commission of inquiry into what happened.
The 7 October attack and the war that followed triggered a series of regional confrontations involving Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.
Israeli forces still control areas in southern Lebanon, where more than 300,000 people remain displaced. The repercussions also extended to Syria and Iran, while the regional confrontations contributed to disruption in global markets.
