Three years after the October 7 attack: victims, hostages, and crimes

It was the largest terrorist attack in Israel’s history, triggering the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip. The operation, named „Al-Aqsa Flood”, began at approximately 06:30 local time with the launch of several thousand rockets towards southern Israel.

Approximately 6,000 Palestinian militants and civilians crossed from the Gaza Strip into Israel. The border barrier was breached in over a hundred places, including through the use of explosives and bulldozers; attackers also arrived by sea and on paragliders.

Announcing the start of the operation, the commander of Hamas’s armed wing, Mohammed Deif, presented it as a response to Israel’s actions against Palestinians and the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. The attack had been prepared by Hamas for years. Documents found later showed that individual units had been assigned specific bases and towns, and the instructions included methods for conducting the assault and kidnapping hostages.

One of the first targets was an electronic music festival in the Negev desert, approximately 5 km from the fenced border with the Gaza Strip. 378 people died there, and 44 were abducted. During the attack on the festival, rapes and other acts of sexual violence occurred.

Course of the Hamas attack and the beginning of the retaliatory war

In Sderot, Hamas militants seized a police station, killing approximately 30 people. During the day, armed attackers stormed dozens of Israeli towns and military facilities in southern Israel. Several kibbutzim and settlements temporarily fell under Hamas control. A massacre of the civilian population took place in Be’eri, where 101 residents were killed; 56 died in Kfar Aza, and 47 in Nir Oz. The attackers murdered entire families and set houses on fire.

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad kidnapped 251 people – soldiers and civilians, including children – announcing their intention to use them as bargaining chips. For many hours, the Israeli army was unable to bring the situation under control. In some towns, residents and local civil defence units fought the attackers without sufficient military support.

In total, 1,175 people were killed in the attack, including 379 soldiers, 725 civilians, and 71 foreign nationals. Among the victims were approximately 70 Arab citizens of Israel, mostly Bedouins. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on 7 October that the country was at war with Hamas and promised „mighty vengeance”. Deliveries of electricity, fuel, and goods to the Gaza Strip, inhabited by over 2 million people, were halted. The military began mobilising reservists. In the evening, intense retaliatory air strikes on the Gaza Strip commenced.

Failures of Israeli intelligence, lack of inquiry, and international assessment of the attack

The Israeli military later admitted it had not foreseen the offensive. Intelligence had been aware of Hamas’s „Jericho Wall” plan since 2022, which involved breaching the border, attacking bases and towns, and carrying out abductions, but concluded that the group was either unable or did not intend to implement it. The internal security service (Shin Bet) reached similar conclusions. On the night of 6-7 October, the service detected unusual Hamas activity and warned of a possible assault, but expected a limited raid or a kidnapping attempt rather than an assault on such a scale.

Three years after the attack, an independent state commission of inquiry, demanded by the opposition and families of the victims, has not been established. Netanyahu opposes its creation, and the coalition has proposed a parliamentary commission instead. The bill has already passed its first reading in the Knesset.

In 2024, a UN commission of inquiry found that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes on 7 October, including torture, intentional attacks on civilians, murder, and hostage-taking. The governments of many countries, human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court have recognised the attack as a war crime or a crime against humanity.

Casualty Numbers and the Ceasefire in the Gaza Strip

In the Israeli offensive launched after the Hamas attack, over 74,200 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have lost their lives, and more than 175,000 have been injured – according to the local ministry of health. 472 Israeli soldiers have also died in the campaign. A ceasefire from October 2025 ended the heaviest fighting, although Israeli attacks have not ceased entirely since then.