How Hamas carried out its deadliest attack on Israel on October 7th last year – Firstpost

Today, October 7, marks the first anniversary of the unprecedented attack on Israel by the Palestinian militant group Hamas. From geopolitics to relations among nations in West Asia, everything has changed since that day.

According to one AFP In total, the October 7 attack claimed the lives of 1,205 Israelis, mostly civilians, while thousands more were injured. The figure also includes the number of hostages who were killed in the Gaza Strip or who died in captivity.

The families of those killed at the Nova music festival gathered this year, along with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, at 6:30 a.m. (the exact hour Hamas launched its attack) at the site where nearly 400 revelers were shot and killed from where many others were brought hostage.

Given the great panic and confusion that the attacks brought, the details of what happened that day could not be clarified. A year later it has become clearer.

Here is a detailed account of the deadliest attack on the Jewish nation.

Hamas launched a surprise attack

At dawn on October 7, Hamas fired about 5,000 rockets. While Israel’s defense system, the Iron Dome, blocked some of the rockets, it was quickly overwhelmed by the sheer numbers. At the same time, Hamas fighters – the group later numbered 1,200 men – stormed across the border on motorcycles, in pickup trucks and even in motorized paragliders.

They used explosives and bulldozers to breach the fence separating Gaza from Israel and attacked nearly 50 different locations, including kibbutzim communities, military bases and a music festival. Militants killed festival-goers en masse, went door-to-door in farming communities and shot residents in their homes.

In March, a United Nations report confirmed that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” that rape occurred during the attack. It also found “clear and convincing information” that some of the hostages kidnapped that day had been raped.

The slow response of the Israeli army

By 8:30 a.m., Hamas militants had stormed across the border into the Jewish nation’s interior regions, including six military bases, kibbutz communities and a music festival. These include Erez at the northern end of the Gaza Strip, Nahal Oz opposite Gaza City, two others near the Beeri Kibbutz, one in Reim near the central Gaza Strip and two in the south near the Egyptian border.

Residents of kibbutzim near Gaza were forced to fight alone against the attackers for hours as the military was slow to come to their aid. They later told how they cowered in safe rooms as militants tried to break down the doors, or how they all grabbed their weapons and rushed out to repel the attack.

At the Nova music festival, where nearly 3,000 people gathered in fields and forests a few kilometers from the center of the Gaza Strip, militants went on an hour-long rampage that killed at least 370 people. In Kibbutz Beeri, one of the hardest-hit communities, the first individual Israeli reinforcements arrived to help “from 1:30 p.m.,” an army report later said.

At 4:15 p.m., a full army division arrived to organize a coordinated evacuation of survivors and retake control of the kibbutz. The military announced around 6:00 p.m. that both soldiers and civilians had been captured by Hamas attackers and taken to Gaza.

Hundreds were taken hostage

On October 7, a total of 251 people were taken hostage in Israel, including 44 from the Nova festival and at least 74 from Kibbutz Nir Oz. Some, including soldiers, were already dead and their bodies had been taken to Gaza, the army said .

Some hostages may have fallen victim to friendly fire, including at Kibbutz Beeri, where witnesses told Israeli media that a tank fired on a house where 14 people were being held by Hamas.

The order may have been an example of the “Hannibal Directive,” which was used at least three times that day, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz. This measure allows the use of force to prevent the capture of soldiers.

Netanyahu declares his “war”

At 11:34 a.m., Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered an almost unprecedented televised address to the rest of the population, declaring: “We are at war.” In the afternoon, the military called up 360,000 reservists to reinforce the army, which otherwise consists of 170,000 men , a mix of compulsory service and professional soldiers.

Israel quickly began a relentless bombardment of Gaza, the tiny Palestinian coastal territory of 2.4 million people that has been ruled by Hamas since 2007. To AFP A journalist reported the first attack in Gaza at 10:39 a.m. that day. Since then, the area has been devastated by relentless airstrikes.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza since October 7 has killed at least 41,788 people, most of them civilians, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory. The UN described the numbers as reliable.

As night fell on October 7, the search for gunmen still in Israel continued. Frightened civilians were trapped in their homes and many streets were deserted. On October 10, the military said it had retaken control of all areas attacked by the militants.

With contributions from AFP