October 7, one year on: A look at a year ravaged by the Israel-Hamas War

Kfir. Hersh. Na’ama. Avigail. Noa. Ariel. Shani. Aner.

A year ago, most of us didn’t know any of these names. Now they, and many others, are our family. We mourn their loss, wake up in the middle of the night worrying about them, and, in the best moments, rejoice at their rescue or release.

They are among the approximately 1,200 who were murdered and the 240 taken captive by Hamas on Oct. 7. One year ago, the world changed – for those of us in Israel and for people around the world. It was the day more Jews were murdered than at any time since the Holocaust.

Israel is now at war on six fronts (seven, if you count the Jordanian border), and the massacre unleashed a worldwide wave of antisemitism, the likes of which has not been seen since the Nazi era. It shows no signs of abating and is aided by a sophisticated social media campaign of disinformation and veneration of terror groups. 

It’s a day that has not ended, and in many ways and for many people, it will never end. Entire families were slaughtered in a moment. Partygoers, kibbutz members, villagers, and city dwellers were cut down, from children to their grandparents. The youngest victims were under one, the oldest over 80.

Other families were thrown into the horror of learning that their loved ones were taken captive by terrorists who, earlier that day, thought nothing of killing their victims, shooting them at point-blank range, sexually abusing them, dismembering them, and/or burning them alive.

Throughout this year, we followed the increasingly painful journey of the “hostage families” – a phrase that didn’t exist before this war – and helped them as best we could. Some of us demonstrated with them, calling for a hostage deal. Others wore yellow ribbons and dog tags in solidarity. Some prayed with them at the “hostage tents,” another term coined this year.

Some of us – or our children, fathers, brothers, spouses, and friends – were sent to fight. Many are still fighting. Others paid the ultimate price on the battlefield, about 1,000, including those who fell on Oct. 7. 

Israelis from all walks of life were affected by the war, including Bedouin from the Negev, 17 of whom were murdered and eight of whom were taken hostage. This conflict has reaffirmed the bond between Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel, especially in light of many stories of Bedouin acting heroically to save lives on Oct. 7. 

These acts of bravery are especially impressive, given that Bedouin often face discrimination and obstacles, especially in their fight to obtain government approval for unrecognized villages. When in August the IDF rescued Qaid Farhan Alkadi, one of the Bedouin hostages, Israelis rejoiced all around the country as they saw his family sprinting to the hospital to greet him. 

There were other times of rejoicing and relief when Ori Megidish was rescued by the IDF last October; Fernando Marman and Louis Har in February; and Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv in June; and when hostages were released in a hostage deal in late 2023. 

Israelis may disagree on when and how to get hostages out of Gaza, but no one can deny that so many of us feel as if they are our own relatives, partly because we care about other Israelis and partly because we know that it’s a lucky accident that we and our families are free right now and not in a tunnel held captive by Hamas.

It’s worth noting that more than 70 foreign nationals were murdered on Oct. 7. The majority of these were Thai agricultural workers; Africans and Asians studying agriculture; as well as tourists. These foreigners, many of whom showed the terrorists their passports and pleaded for their lives, were murdered in ways just as cruel as the killings of Israeli Jews. 

We know that because the terrorists filmed themselves committing these murders, and broadcast the footage throughout that day, filled with pride as they committed their barbaric actions. The important point for the terrorists was to murder. Whom they slaughtered was apparently not all that important. 

I STILL remember the feeling of denial and disbelief I experienced on Oct. 7, a feeling many Israelis shared that morning. I was drinking coffee in my apartment in Jerusalem before the first siren sounded at around 8 a.m., and I had not turned on the news yet. Missile alerts in Jerusalem are so rare. I thought at first that it was some kind of mistake; perhaps a missile meant for someplace else had come our way by accident. 

But then there were another five or six alerts. Sitting with my neighbors in our building’s bomb shelter, I heard children asking their parents if they could still go to the playground, as promised. It was a Saturday morning and a Jewish holiday. No, their parents told them; not today. These parents knew a thing or two about keeping their families safe, although it was hours before any representative of the government addressed the public, explaining that Israel was now at war with Hamas.

After our first 10 minutes in the shelter, I turned on the news and also went online, where I saw horrible videos of hostages kidnapped from Israel into Gaza. The most disturbing of these were so graphic and vicious that I told myself they could not possibly be genuine – pictures of infants, the elderly, young women, men, and soldiers – all dragged into Gaza by terrorists holding them at gunpoint as Palestinian crowds celebrated, beat them up, and spat on them. 

They could not possibly be real, I thought. But wasn’t the Internet a vast repository of fake news? I understood that something had happened, and I saw news reports of young people fleeing the Supernova music festival. But I still assumed it was a small incursion and would be contained soon. After all, how could it be that the IDF, which we are repeatedly told is one of the strongest fighting forces in the world, could fail so utterly in defending a 60-km. border?

Later, it turned out that there were some fake videos among the real ones, but the most horrific ones turned out to be all too real. 

I did not begin to grasp the extent of the attack until I saw newscaster Danny Kushmaro on Keshet 12 speaking around noon to a young woman, Ella Ben-Ami, who was hiding in her safe room on Kibbutz Be’eri. She had just seen a photo of her father, Oded Ben-Ami, who was kidnapped into Gaza, which the terrorists uploaded to Telegram.  She had no idea where her mother was (it turned out she was also taken hostage and was released in late 2023). Ella was rightly terrified as she said that she, too, might be kidnapped or murdered soon. I will never forget Kushmaro’s face and voice during that conversation as the gravity of what was going on seemed to dawn on him. 

Tamir Steinman, Keshet’s longtime correspondent in the South, read aloud from the hundreds of messages he was receiving from people he had been reporting about for years, who were telling him that terrorists had invaded their cities, their kibbutzim, and their homes. When he tried to call them back, most didn’t answer. “We know why that is,” he said, meaning that they were dead or kidnapped. 

I wondered why they were calling news stations and soon understood, as more details of the ongoing slaughter came in: No one else would answer them. 

The police and the army, overwhelmed, in most cases did not arrive in significant numbers for many hours. Not knowing the South well, I plugged the addresses of some of the worst-hit kibbutzim into Waze, trying to figure out how long it would take for someone to drive there from the center of the country, where presumably most soldiers were located. 

According to Waze, it would take 80 to 90 minutes; faster if you really hit the gas. So why, four, five, six, seven hours after the attacks began, weren’t more troops there? The calls kept pouring in to reporters on the television news. People said their houses were on fire. They had heard their neighbors being slaughtered. Terrorists were in their home, trying to open their safe rooms. No one had come to help.

ON THE EVENING of Oct. 6, if you had asked me (and I’m guessing most Israelis) to place a hefty bet on whether Israel had an emergency plan to mobilize the army and protect the country in the case of an attack, I would have happily taken it, confident I would win. 

 But now there was an actual attack, and it was clear that there was no such plan. 

People were left to protect themselves from a horde of thousands of terrorists armed with RPGs and rifles, with huge supplies of ammunition. I wondered why soldiers from the military bases in the South hadn’t gone in to fight, and then learned that many bases had been quickly taken over by the terrorists. 

I have since seen almost every documentary and news feature about Oct. 7, and out of all of them I am most haunted by the film Eyes Wide Open by Noa Aharoni, which aired on Kan 11. (Its Hebrew title is Hayalot Shel Af Ehad, which translates as “Nobody’s Female Soldiers,” and is still available on the Kan 11 website.)

It tells the story of the unarmed female IDF border observers on the military base Nahal Oz, which was overrun by terrorists that morning. The observers repeatedly warned their commanders and anyone who would listen about Hamas’s daily maneuvers on the border. Their warnings were ignored. 

One of the most heartbreaking moments is a conversation recorded between Roni Eshel, one of the observers, and her parents. She told them she “felt broken down” because she was sure there was about to be a war soon, based on what she had seen on the border. “There are things I know that you don’t,” she told them. 

They reassured her, as most parents would have, since her warnings seemed so much at odds with the messages the government was sending. 

She went back to the base after a visit home and was slaughtered, along with 14 other observers that day. Of the seven taken hostage, one, Noa Marciano, was murdered in captivity; another, Ori Magidish, was rescued. Five – Na’ama Levy, Daniela Gilboa, Karina Ariev, Agam Berger, and Liri Albag – are still being held by Hamas. 

In late May, chilling video was released of Hamas terrorists touching their wounded bodies and forcing these young women to sit still while they prayed – and they prayed slowly, certain that no one was coming to rescue these border observers anytime soon. 

Before the base was completely overrun, the observers called their commanders, begging for help, but were told, “Manage by yourselves.” Several sat stoically at their posts, just as they had been trained, reporting on the advance of the terrorists, who soon murdered them.

ON OCT. 7, after I learned that military bases were taken over, I collected old books, games, and toys, and brought them to my building’s bomb shelter. It was clear that whatever was happening was going to go on for a long time. Fortunately for us in Jerusalem, these toys weren’t needed very often, although on the night of the Iranian attack in April, much of which was aimed at the capital, these items provided some comfort to the children in my building.

As of this writing, the war shows no sign of abating. But as we go into the second year of the war, I can find three reasons for comfort, and they are not trivial.

The first is how civilians came together to help the victims of the attack and other evacuees from the South and the North. Centers staffed by civilians were set up to provide food, clothing, toys, medicine, and everything else you can think of for these hundreds of thousands who were suddenly displaced. 

Teachers volunteered to set up programs in hotels for the evacuees before the government came up with a plan to bring the displaced schoolchildren educational frameworks. Early on, I received videos with English subtitles showing important moments in the war, which were sent to me by independent news organizations and filmmakers, who encouraged me to write about them, share them, and post them on social media. I have yet to receive such videos from the government.

The second point of light, and this has been much discussed, is the strength and resilience of Israeli young people. Soldiers and reservists have fought bravely, and young Israelis who are not in the military have been an inspiration simply by going about their lives. They volunteer to help when they have time, they go to their jobs and schools, they take their exams, they make plans, they get married. They live and plan for the future. 

This is not to be taken for granted, especially given that most of them are mourning the loss of a peer, if not a family member. Recently, I interviewed Tom Nesher, the 27-year-old director whose first film, Come Closer, just won the Ophir Award. I asked her about the impact of the war on her young cast and crew.

“For my generation, 18 to 30, everyone knows someone who died this year. Everyone,” she told me. She and her cast wore yellow ribbons and T-shirts referencing the hostages to the Ophir Awards, where they celebrated their win but also spoke about the hostages. 

The third is the grace of the hostage families. When I put myself in their shoes, I know that I would lose my sanity immediately, yet they have managed for a year to advocate eloquently for those whom they love. They have made sure that their family members are not forgotten, and they have met with leaders such as President Joe Biden and even the pope. 

The quietest voices that have reverberated the farthest are those of the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin. After almost a year of being tortured in a tunnel under Rafah, this 23-year-old American-born Israeli was executed by Hamas about a month ago, along with Ori Danino, Eden Yerushalmi, Almog Sarusi, Alex Lobanov, and Carmel Gat. 

The Goldberg-Polins’ speeches about Hersh, and eventually their eulogies for their son, are a master class in humanity and love. They never lost sight of the fact that this conflict has brought suffering to all sides. In a speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August, Jon, Hersh’s father, said, “There is a surplus of agony on all sides of the tragic conflict in the Middle East. In a competition of pain, there are no winners.” Quoting Jewish texts, he brought up the idea that “Every person is an entire universe. We must save all these universes.”

At his funeral, Hersh’s mother, Rachel, thanked God for her son’s life. “For 23 years I was privileged to have this most stunning treasure, to be Hersh’s mama. I’ll take it and say thank you. I just wish it had been for longer.” 

The Goldberg-Polins have taken the usual Jewish phrase uttered about a person who has died – “May his memory be a blessing” – and changed it to: “May his memory be a revolution.” Perhaps Hersh’s loss, and the loss of so many others, will teach us something that can change the world. We can never bring back those who have been murdered, but we can hope that the events of this year will bring us to a better place, especially if we take a page from this family’s book.

How the war has unfolded, month by month

OCTOBER 

The early reports of the outbreak of the war reflect shock over the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, and the horrific task of counting the 1,200 dead and identifying the bodies, as well as determining how many people were taken hostage, a number that rose to around 240. 

The IDF began its response against Hamas early on but did not begin a ground incursion until late October. A few days later, IDF border observer Ori Megidish was rescued from Gaza, which seemed a harbinger of more such rescues, but only three were to follow. 

NOVEMBER

As the war continued, Israel negotiated a deal to release as many captives as possible, especially the nearly 40 children held by Hamas. In late November, the hostage releases began, and most of the children, mothers, and elderly women were released and reunited with their families – although two of the youngest hostages, brothers Kfir and Ariel Bibas, were left behind with their mother, Shiri.

DECEMBER

The hostage release deal came to a sudden halt, as the former captives began to tell hair-raising stories of the mistreatment they endured and of their courage in a horrifying situation. 

In the US, Congress held hearings to shed light on universities’ responses to campus protests against the war, many of which praised Hamas and Hezbollah and included antisemitic rhetoric. During questioning, the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania could not condemn calls for the genocide of Jews as hate speech.

JANUARY

The fighting in the ground war in Gaza intensified, with IDF soldiers losing their lives almost every day. When Fauda star and musician Idan Amedi was severely wounded, Israelis were impressed by his courage under fire and during his recovery from his injuries. 

FEBRUARY

In the second hostage rescue, Louis Har and Fernando Marman were retrieved by Israeli troops from an apartment in Rafah, after 129 days in Hamas captivity. 

MARCH

As the Houthis continued to fire at Israel from Yemen and attack ships, and Hezbollah kept up its bombardment of Israel from the North, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi gave a speech saying that Israel was in the midst of a multi-front war that showed no signs of ending. 

Most international human rights organizations and women’s groups ignored mounting evidence of widespread sexual assaults by Hamas, which led released hostage Amit Soussana to make a brave decision to speak out publicly about her rape by one of her captors. 

APRIL

On April 1, Israel killed several members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria. Iran responded in mid-April, launching the largest drone strike in history at Israel, with over 170 drones, around 30 cruise missiles, and more than 120 ballistic missiles. 

On the night of April 13-14, Israelis were notified that the rockets were on their way and told to seek shelter hours before, beginning a bizarre wait for the attacks. At 2 a.m. on April 14, explosions were heard over Jerusalem, and sirens sounded throughout the region, in an attack that seriously wounded a seven-year-old Bedouin girl near Arad. David’s Sling and the Iron Dome performed admirably, and what could have been a nationwide disaster was averted. 

MAY

While the Eurovision Song Contest has long provided escapist fun for Israelis, this year’s contestant, Eden Golan, faced an unprecedented wave of hatred due to the war. She handled it with uncommon grace and finished second in the audience voting for her song “Hurricane,” which commemorates the Oct. 7 massacre.

At the end of May, horrifying video footage of the capture of several of the female IDF border observers by Hamas terrorists was released, which reminded everyone of what Israel was fighting for. 

JUNE

The daring rescue, under heavy enemy fire, of four hostages from the central Gaza Strip was a rare moment of joy in a difficult year. Noa Argamani, one of the four, had become the face of the kidnapped Israelis around the world after a video of her abduction went viral. 

She and three others held nearby – Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv – were taken from their captors in a complex operation right out of a movie, with Israelis going undercover in the neighborhood for more than a month to gather intelligence. Sadly, Ch.-Insp. Arnon Zamora, of the Yamam counter-terrorism unit, was killed during the rescue.

JULY

Twelve children and teenagers playing soccer in Majdal Shams were killed by an Iranian-made rocket launched at Israel by Hezbollah. Israelis from all over joined the Druze community in mourning the loss of these youngsters. The IDF vowed not to let up in its fight against the Iranian-backed terror group, which was behind the attack. 

At the end of the month, top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in a VIP compound for diplomats in Tehran, likely by an explosive that had been planted much earlier and was detonated remotely. Haniyeh, whose net worth was estimated at $4 billion, lived in luxury in Doha and was visiting Iran to attend an inauguration ceremony for the Islamic Republic’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian. 

AUGUST

As Hamas scrambled to minimize the impact of Haniyeh’s assassination in August, at the end of the month Israel announced the rescue of another hostage, Qaid Farhan Alkadi, one of the eight Bedouin hostages taken by Hamas. 

As his family raced to the hospital to greet him, details of his heroism on Oct. 7 emerged: He took a bullet rather than lead terrorists to Jews who lived near the packing plant on Kibbutz Magen. 

SEPTEMBER

The month started with the terrible news so many families had long dreaded: Six Israeli hostages who had managed to survive for nearly 11 months had been executed by Hamas terrorists. Israel mourned for these murdered young adults – Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alex Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, and Hersh Goldberg-Polin. The Goldberg-Polin family, who had reached out to so many during their fight to save their son and the other hostages, touched the world with their moving eulogies for Hersh. 

At the end of September, the IDF killed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and several of his top commanders. This move sparked elation in Israel, where Hezbollah had been bombarding the northern border for over 30 years, but also among millions across the region – as people from Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, who had long been threatened and terrorized by Hezbollah, could not contain their glee. 