The Palestinian Hamas from Gaza fired a volley of rockets at Israel today, but this did not hinder the celebrations in Israel marking the anniversary of the attack by Hamas on October 7, which started a year-long war that has no end in sight and is spreading to other countries.
The Lebanese Ministry of Health announced that at least ten firefighters were killed in an Israeli attack on southern Lebanon. Lebanon's Hezbollah, which began firing rockets at Israel on October 8, 2023, in support of its ally Hamas, fired new barrages despite recent losses.
Hamas also said it attacked Israeli forces in various parts of Gaza, and the Israeli military launched a wave of artillery and airstrikes to thwart what it said was an impending attack on Israel. Hamas launch pads and underground infrastructure were said to have been targeted.
The fighting on the anniversary highlighted the resilience of Hamas fighters in the face of a devastating Israeli offensive that has killed some 42.000 Palestinians, according to local officials. Large areas of Gaza were destroyed and 90 percent of its population of two and a half million displaced.
Israel is now at war with Hamas in Gaza and its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, and is also attacking the Houthi movement in Yemen, as well as Islamists in Syria and Iraq. He vowed to attack the bellows' sponsor, Iran, in response to Iran's ballistic missile attack on Israel last Sunday.
Hundreds of relatives of people killed in the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7 gathered today for a memorial service in Tel Aviv's central park.
The families of the victims, angered by the government's failure to protect them on October 7, 2023, or subsequently release them from captivity in Gaza where several dozen survived, decided to hold their own ceremony.
The government announced a second ceremony for tonight, but that ceremony was pre-recorded without an audience apparently out of concern that it might be disrupted.
Today, 175 rockets were launched from Lebanon to the north of Israel, in which one woman was injured and a lot of damage was caused, the Israeli army announced.
Earlier, seven people were injured, one seriously, when rockets hit the cities of Haifa and Tiberias on Sunday, Israel's rescue service said.
Police said that rocket fire hit roads and several houses today.
Lebanon's Hezbollah said it launched several rocket attacks today, including a "large salvo" on areas north of Haifa, the northern Israeli city of Karmiel and the city of Kfar Vradim.
He is also said to have fired rockets at the edge of the Lebanese village of Maroun El-Ras, which had been captured by Israeli troops.
The Israeli military said it carried out a large-scale air operation in Lebanon today, hitting more than 120 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon. The targets were said to include locations belonging to the forces of the Radwan militant group, the missile force and the intelligence division.
The Israeli military said it intercepted a ballistic missile fired from Yemen that set off sirens across central Israel for the second time today. There were no reports of injuries.
Today, rockets fired from Gaza also set off sirens in Tel Aviv and several neighboring cities.
A village in the mountains southeast of Beirut is in shock after an Israeli airstrike demolished one residential building and partially another, killing seven people, including three children.
Over the past two weeks, Israel has been carrying out an increasing bombardment of many parts of southern and eastern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut, targeting what it said were Hezbollah extremists and weapons.
Israeli soldiers killed a 12-year-old Palestinian boy in the central West Bank today, the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced. The Israeli army said its forces opened fire on rioters who threw stones at troops operating in the area.
US President Joseph Biden and First Lady Jill Biden hosted a memorial service today at the White House to mark the anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. It was a gathering to remember the more than 1.200 people, including dozens of Americans, killed that day.
The President then lit a single memorial candle placed on a small table in the center of the Blue Room of the White House, where a minute of silence was observed.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today that Israel is waging a "war of resurrection" and will continue until it achieves its goals.
He thereby provoked a response from a group representing the families of hostages held in Gaza, who said they wanted to "remind the prime minister that there is and will be no resurrection without the return of all the hostages."
In an earlier statement, Netanyahu vowed that Israel would continue to fight until the "living and dead" hostages were returned, Hamas was "finished" and residents of the north and south of Israel returned to their homes.
On the anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned Israel's military actions in Gaza and Lebanon: "Today I remember with sadness the tens of thousands of people who were massacred by the murderous Israeli government since October 7," Erdogan said and expressed "the most sincere condolences to my brothers from Gaza, Palestine and Lebanon".
"Israel will sooner or later pay the price for this genocide, which it has been carrying out for a year and which is still going on," Erdogan wrote and continued: "Just as Hitler was stopped by a common alliance of humanity, (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu and his network the killer will be stopped in the same way".
A top Jordanian diplomat today condemned Israel's war with the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, saying Israel is pushing the Middle East into "the precipice of a full-scale regional war."
"We are facing a catastrophe and a dangerous escalation that threatens the region," said Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi. "Israel bears responsibility for this aggression, escalation in the region and every new escalation the region is facing," he said.
(Beta)
Iran hails October 7 as a "turning point in the history" of the Palestinian struggle against Israel, according to a statement issued today, on the anniversary of the attack by the Palestinian militant organization Hamas from the Gaza Strip on the soil of the Jewish state.
That attack, which killed 1.206 people, most of them civilians, and Hamas kidnapped 250 people and imprisoned them in the Gaza Strip, led to an Israeli military response - first bombing Gaza, then invading the densely populated Palestinian territory of 2,5 million people which has been run by Hamas since 2007. The proclaimed goal of Israel is the destruction of Hamas.
"The action carried out on October 7, 2023 (...) marked a turning point in the history of the Palestinian nation's legitimate struggle against the occupation and oppression carried out by the Zionist regime," the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced.
The ministry says that "supporters of the occupying regime, especially the US, were complicit in the crimes of that regime against the people of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen."
Iran supports Hamas, which, along with the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, is part of what the Islamic Republic calls the "Axis of Resistance" against Israel.
Last week, Iran fired 200 missiles at Israel, its sworn enemy, in response to Israel's killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
Israel announced that it is preparing a response to the attack by Iran, which today reaffirmed that it will respond "strongly" to any possible Israeli attack on its soil, at the same time stressing that it does not want to expand the war in the region, while many in the world fear that this will happen. that.
(Beta)
The war in Gaza should end during the next year and a new government will be established to govern the devastated enclave, said Israel's ambassador to the European Union in an interview with Politiko magazine.
Haim Regev said the Israel Defense Forces had achieved most of its military objectives in Gaza, weakening the Palestinian militant group Hamas to the point where it could no longer fight as an organized body and now behaved like a guerrilla army.
"Before the war, Hamas was like a regular army, but today this military threat no longer exists. We dismantled most of the battalions and I think this will be the year when we see a new governance structure in Gaza," he said in an interview marking the anniversary since the October 7 attacks by Hamas.
"It's a matter of time (the end of the war). That will happen when all the hostages are released," added Regev.
Israeli authorities say they do not want to control the Gaza Strip. In a recent interview, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was also the Middle East peace envoy, said that a third power, neither Israeli nor Palestinian, should help govern Gaza once the fighting is over.
"We need to determine who will rule in Gaza," Regev said, adding that the Palestinian Authority that was in power before Hamas "doesn't have the power and legitimacy to come back and control the situation, because we haven't seen many of them condemning the massacre."
Regev added that the EU could play a significant role after the conflict in controlling the so-called Philadelphia Corridor between Gaza and Egypt.
Considering Israel's position in the world, one year after the October 7 attacks in which Hamas killed more than 1.200 Israelis and took about 250 hostages,
Regev said he was not worried about Israel militarily: "We will win and prevail," he said.
Regev said that "the last few weeks show that Israel is strong and fighting successfully" against Hezbollah in Lebanon, where it killed leader Hassan Nasrallah, as well as against Iranian proxies in Yemen, Syria and Iraq.
But the Israeli envoy was more concerned about Israel's position on the global stage.
"In recent months, we see that there is a huge erosion in understanding for our position. There is an erosion in support. Some member states are trying to present their own position on the EU stage, for a number of reasons. I don't think Israel is isolated," said Regev.
Over the weekend, thousands of people attended demonstrations in Europe and around the world.
Some gathered in solidarity with Israel, calling for the release of the remaining hostages, but many more protested Israel's military operations.
"I have seen demonstrations here, in Brussels and Amsterdam. This worries me much more than what is happening on the ground. But there is a lack of moral clarity: many people do not understand that this is a democratic war against radical and extreme forces," said Regev.
Asked about the condemnations of the death toll in Gaza and Lebanon, which now reaches tens of thousands, Regev said it is not easy to explain those numbers.
"It is complicated to explain the numbers. When we entered Gaza and Lebanon we faced the same method, because they use civilian infrastructure. We are not fighting against a real army. We are fighting against terrorist groups that use local infrastructure, mosques and hospitals," he said. he.
(Beta)
The President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said that Israel will pay the price for the "genocide" in Gaza.
"We should not forget that sooner or later Israel will pay the price for this genocide that it has been carrying out for a year and is still going on," he wrote in a post on the X platform.
"Just as Hitler was stopped by the alliance of humanity, so will Netanyahu and his network of murderers be stopped in the same way. A world in which no account is taken for the genocide in Gaza will never find peace," Erdogan said.
"What is being massacred live on TV in front of the eyes of the world for exactly one year is actually all of humanity, all of humanity's hopes for the future... Israel's long-term policy of genocide, occupation and invasion must end now," the Turkish president added.
One year since the attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, world leaders, and especially European ones, today recalled their "horror" in relation to that event and emphasized their commitment to peace, not forgetting the fate of the Palestinians.
From Amsterdam to Tokyo, numerous statements marked the anniversary of the massacre by the Palestinian extremist group Hamas, the deadliest in Israel's history. The attack caught the country by surprise on a Jewish religious holiday, killing more than 1.200 people and sparking Israel's devastating war in the Gaza Strip.
In Gaza, the Israeli army killed almost 42.000 Palestinians, and in mid-September another front was opened, in Lebanon, directed against the pro-Iranian Hezbollah.
Japan "unequivocally condemned" the attack by Hamas on Israel, but also added that it is "seriously concerned about the critical humanitarian situation that continues in the Gaza Strip".
In the Netherlands, where a huge Israeli flag is due to be unfurled today in a large square in Amsterdam, pro-Palestinian demonstrations are also expected, with sit-ins at several train stations.
Prime Minister Dick Schoff will go to a synagogue in Amsterdam to attend a ceremony organized by the Israeli embassy and the Jewish community on the anniversary of the attack.
"One year since the terrible terrorist attacks on October 7, we do not forget," Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis wrote on the X network.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer also referred to a "day of sadness and pain" a year after the "horrific" massacre on October 7. He said Britain would not relent in its pursuit of peace and wanted to work to secure "a better future for the Middle East".
The Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated its "firm condemnation of the terrible terrorist attacks by Hamas", but at the same time called for a cease-fire in Gaza and a two-state solution in the Middle East, "which would guarantee peace to Palestinians and Israelis, mutual peace and security", the Spanish minister said. of Foreign Affairs Jose Luis Albares.
German Foreign Minister Analena Berbock said that "the terror of October 7 marked a cruel break in peace for the people of Israel, for the population of the Middle East, as well as for her country."
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier plan to attend the anniversary ceremonies on October 7.
In Berlin, protest marches were announced at the initiative of the Jewish community, but also gatherings of pro-Palestinian supporters.
In France, President Emmanuel Macron sent his "fraternal thoughts" on the X network to the victims, hostages and "heartbroken families because of their absence or waiting".
Of the 251 people abducted that day, 97 are still in Gaza, but Israeli authorities believe 34 of them are dead.
"The pain remains as strong as a year ago," Macron said, adding that the Israeli people, the French people and "wounded humanity" are feeling the pain.
In a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the day before, he emphasized that France is committed to Israel's security.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barot attended today the ceremony marking the anniversary of the massacre in Israel in Reim, where the attack began at the rave party. Recalling about 40 French-Israeli victims, he said that France weeps together with Israel for its murdered compatriots, and that it will never stop demanding the unconditional release of the hostages.
Israel began commemorating the anniversary of the massacre this morning at 6.29am, when the attack began a year ago when at least 370 rave party participants were killed.
Israeli President Isak Herzog called on the world to support Israel in its fight against the enemy.
October 7 leaves a "wound on humanity," said Hercog, while Israel announced today that the third division was engaged in ground operations in the south of Lebanon.
Hamas leader Khaled Mekshal said on Al Arabiya television that the Oct. 7 attack brought Israel "back to the beginning and threatens its existence."
Lebanon's Hezbollah, which Israel is fighting in Lebanon, said today it will continue to fight Israeli aggression and called Israel a "cancerous" entity that needs to be "eliminated."
(BETA)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today that Israel has an obligation to return its hostages during a ceremony marking the first anniversary of the attack on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist organization Hamas.
"On this day in this place and in many places in the country, we remember our dead, our hostages whom we are obliged to bring back and our heroes who fell in defense of the homeland and the country," Netanyahu said at the ceremony in Jerusalem, reported is France Pres.
Together with Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lyon, Netanyahu visited the monument erected in honor of 87 Jerusalem civilians and soldiers who died after October 7 last year.
"We went through a terrible massacre a year ago and stood up as a people, like lions," the Israeli leader said. The mayor of Jerusalem called for the unity of all the forces of Israel.
(BETA)
The Israel Defense Forces called on residents of Beit Hanun, Jabaliya and Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip to evacuate south to the so-called "humanitarian zone" in Al Mawasi, where an estimated one million displaced people are housed.
"Israeli military forces are operating intensively in the area," the statement said.
It is estimated that up to 300.000 people remain in the badly damaged north after earlier warnings by Israel, which sent about a million people fleeing south.
Across the border from Israel, at least eight people were killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a fire station linked to the Islamic Health Service in the southern Lebanese city of Barachit, according to a report by Lebanon's official National News Agency.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi is currently visiting Lebanon, who warned that "Israeli aggression is pushing the region towards the abyss" of a general war.
"The Israeli aggression... which started in Gaza and has now continued in Lebanon, is pushing the entire region towards the abyss of total regional war," Safadi said at a press conference in Beirut.
A year after the Hamas attack on the south of Israel, the Middle East is on the brink of a wider war that would have major geopolitical consequences, writes Politiko.
Meanwhile, the EU remains hopelessly divided over the conflict. Von der Leyen was heavily criticized a year ago for traveling to Israel in solidarity after the attacks, and some MEPs and diplomats are angry that she did not warn Tel Aviv of the humanitarian impact of retaliation against Hamas. Since then, the EU's attitude towards Israel has not been much more unified.
The Israeli army announced that the head of the US Central Command (CENTCOM) General Michael Eric Kurila met on Sunday with the Chief of General Staff of the Israeli army, General Herzi Halevi.
Today's military announcement states that the commander of CENTCOM, responsible specifically for US military operations in the Middle East, assessed the situation with the Chief of General Staff and other commanders.
The focus of the visit to Israel was current security issues, especially Iran and the northern front on the border with Lebanon, France Press reported.
(BETA)
Bosniak Party MP Kenana Strujić Harbić spoke on the occasion of one year since the beginning of the conflict in Gaza and said on her official X account that peace has no alternative and that the world must stop this war.
Two people were killed after Israeli planes bombed a house in the Lebanese city of Kalija in the western Beka Valley, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reports.
Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that the attacks led by Hamas on October 7 last year "set the Zionist regime (Israel) back 70 years".
He made the statement in a Hebrew-language post on the X Network, sent at 6:29 a.m. Israel time on Monday, the exact time the attacks began a year ago.
At the same time, the Israeli military announced on Xu: "Exactly one year ago, the history of our country changed forever."
On Friday, Khamenei led a memorial service in Tehran for Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed last month, during which he praised the October 7 Hamas attack and described it as legitimate.
Two people were slightly wounded today when a Hamas rocket landed in the central part of Israel, according to the Israeli emergency services.
As stated, two women were hit by fragments of the bomb and were taken to the hospital.
The Israeli military said five rockets were fired from Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip in the attack.
Palestinian Hamas, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for what Israeli media reported was rocket fire into central Israel, saying it targeted Tel Aviv.
The rockets set off missile warning sirens in Tel Aviv and surrounding cities, Holon, Rishon Lezion, Bat Yam, among others.
The Israeli army warned on Sunday, based on intelligence, that Hamas will probably fire rockets at central Israel on the first anniversary of the attack by Palestinian extremists from Gaza on southern Israeli territory, the deadliest in the country's history.
(BETA)
The explosion went off last night 500 meters from the Israeli embassy in the capital of Denmark, Copenhagen, the city's police department announced today.
This happened five days after the attack on the building of that diplomatic mission.
"Of course, we are trying to determine whether it could be related to the incident at the Israeli embassy," Copenhagen police inspector Trine Miller told reporters, but added that "nothing indicates that this is the case."
Pictures published in local media show traces of an explosion in front of a residential building located 500 meters from the Israeli embassy.
On the night of October 1st and 2nd, explosions were recorded near that embassy, probably caused by the throwing of hand grenades, and this is connected with the spread of the conflict in the Middle East.
According to the accusations, two young Swedes, aged 16 and 19, are suspected of carrying five bombs and that two of them allegedly fell about 100 meters away from the embassy.
They were remanded in custody for 27 days on Thursday. Two days later, police said the charges against them had been expanded to include violating terrorism laws, without elaborating.
On Tuesday, shots were fired at the Israeli embassy in Stockholm, and no one was injured.
Swedish intelligence has not ruled out Iranian involvement in the two incidents.
(BETA)
At least 41.909 Palestinians have been killed and 97.303 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, 2023, the Gaza Health Ministry said on Monday.
The Ministry of Health stated that thousands of other dead were most likely lost in the ruins of the enclave.
The deadly attack by Hamas on October 7 last year brought Israel back to ground zero, said today a senior official of the Palestinian Islamist organization, Khaled Mashal.
"Operation 'Al-Aqsa Flood' has brought the occupation back to ground zero and threatens its existence," Mashal, a former Hamas leader, told Qatar's Al Arabiya TV, using the name for an attack the militant group carried out exactly a year ago.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said another division was deployed yesterday for "local operations" in southern Lebanon.
The division is reportedly the third division-level troop grouping to be used in Israel's ground invasion of Lebanon, which was launched a week ago when several areas in the country's south were ordered to evacuate.
"Soldiers of the 91st Division have begun localized and targeted operational activities in southern Lebanon," the Israeli military said in a statement.
Israel's military said it was investigating how rockets fired by Hezbollah managed to penetrate air defense systems in an attack on Haifa early this morning, the Guardian reports.
Five people were injured, and police said several buildings and property were damaged. It was the first direct attack on a northern Israeli city that eluded the usually reliable air defense systems.
Early this morning, Israel also intercepted two missiles fired from the east after sirens went off in the central areas of Rishon Lezion and Palmachim, the military said.
Idan Štivi, who was thought to have been killed during a Hamas attack on October 7 last year, has now been confirmed dead and his body is being held in Gaza, according to information from the Office of Abductees and Families.
Štivi attended the Nova music festival and was killed there, reports CNN.
Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group, vowed to continue the fight against Israeli "aggression" and called Israel "a cancerous gland that needs to be eliminated, no matter how long it takes."
The militant group said both Hezbollah and the Lebanese people paid a heavy price for their decision to open a "front of support" for Gaza on October 8.
"But we believe... in the ability of our resistance to stand up to Israeli aggression," they said in a statement.
Hezbollah also said the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, which killed around 1.200 people, were "heroic", adding that they would have "historic" consequences in the region. "There is no place for Israel," the militant group said.
Bonus video: