On October 7, 2023, a series of coordinated armed incursions from the blockaded Gaza Strip into the Gaza envelope of southern Israel were carried out by Hamas and several other Palestinian militant groups killing at least 1,195 people during the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah. In response, Israel intensified its blockade and launched a major military operation in Gaza, actions scholars have concluded constitute genocide. The attacks began with a barrage of at least 4,300 rockets launched into Israel and vehicle-transported and powered paraglider incursions into Israel. Hamas militants breached the Gaza–Israel barrier, attacking military bases and massacring civilians in 21 communities, including Be'eri, Kfar Aza, Nir Oz, Netiv Haasara, and Alumim. According to an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) report that revised the estimate on the number of attackers, 6,000 Gazans breached the border in 119 locations into Israel, including 3,800 from the elite Nukhba forces and 2,200 civilians and other militants. Additionally, the IDF report estimated 1,000 Gazans fired rockets from the Gaza Strip, bringing the total number of participants on Hamas's side to 7,000. In total, at least 1,195 people were killed by the attacks: at least 828 civilians (including 36 children and 71 foreign nationals) and at least 367 members of the security forces. 364 civilians were killed while they were attending the Nova music festival and many more wounded. 251 Israeli and non-Israeli civilians and soldiers were taken as hostages to the Gaza Strip. Numerous sources have reported dozens of cases of rape and sexual assault, but Hamas officials denied the involvement of their fighters. At least 14 Israeli civilians were killed by the IDF's use of the Hannibal Directive. Hamas said its attack was in response to the continued Israeli occupation, the blockade of the Gaza Strip, the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements, rising Israeli settler violence, recent escalations and Israel's holding of Palestinian prisoners, and that it was in defense of the Palestinian people and their cause. Experts disagree on whether Hamas sought to induce the destruction of Israel, or to establish a Palestinian state with 1967 borders. The day was labelled the bloodiest in Israel's history and "the deadliest for Jews since the Holocaust" by many figures and media outlets in the West, including then-US president Joe Biden. Some have alleged that the attack was an act of genocide or a genocidal massacre against Israelis. The governments of 44 countries denounced the attack and described it as terrorism, while some Arab and Muslim-majority countries blamed Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories as the root cause of the attack.
== Names == Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups codenamed the attacks Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, while in Israel they are referred to as Black Saturday or the Simchat Torah Massacre. Internationally and commonly in Israel, the attacks are called the October 7 attacks.
Background
Israeli occupation and blockade of the Gaza Strip
According to international humanitarian law scholars, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip has been subjected to some form of belligerent Israeli occupation since 1967. The Gaza Strip—a coastal strip 28 miles long and 6 miles wide with small towns and refugee camps delineated by the Green Line of the 1949 Armistice Agreements—was constituted in the aftermath of the Nakba and the 1948 Palestine war, when it came under Egyptian administration (1949–67). In the 1967 Arab–Israeli War (Six-Day War), the Israeli military occupied the Gaza Strip (1967–2005), imposing restrictions on movement and goods into the territory since the early 1990s. In 2005, Israel disengaged from the Gaza Strip by withdrawing its forces and dismantling and evacuating its 21 settlements there, though it redeployed and maintained troops on the borders outside of Gaza and took exclusive control of the airspace over Gaza and its territorial waters. Israel maintained restrictions and active control on the movement of people and goods in the Gaza Strip, with the stated aims of preventing the smuggling of weapons into Gaza and exerting economic pressure on Hamas. In the view of the majority of the relevant scholarship, the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, and many other international non-governmental humanitarian and legal organizations, Israel has continued to be regarded as an occupying power in the Gaza Strip, which has continued to be regarded as among the occupied Palestinian territories. The official Israeli view and certain pro-Israel scholars consider the Gaza Strip to be unoccupied.
Hamas
The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), is a Palestinian nationalist Islamist movement that formed in 1987. It is the largest Islamist movement in the Palestinian territories. They maintain an uncompromising stance on the "complete liberation of Palestine", often using political violence to achieve their goals. Hamas has issued contradictory statements concerning the acceptability of the 1967 borders. Hamas has been responsible for numerous suicide bombings and rocket attacks targeting Israeli civilians. Australia, Canada, the EU, Japan, New Zealand, and the UK have designated Hamas a "terrorist organisation". In 2010 it attempted to derail the peace talks between Israel and the PA. In 2017, it adopted a new charter, removing antisemitic language and shifting focus from Jews to Zionists. Scholars differ on Hamas's objectives, with some saying it seeks a Palestinian state within 1967 borders while others believe Hamas still seeks the destruction of Israel.
=== International warnings === Before the attack, Saudi Arabia warned Israel of an "explosion" as a result of the continued occupation. Egypt said it warned Israel days before the attack that "an explosion of the situation [was] coming, and very soon, and it would be big." Israel denied receiving such a warning, although Michael McCaul, Chairman of the US House Foreign Relations Committee, said that warnings were given three days before the attack. According to Haaretz, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was warned of a Hamas plot to attack Israel in a September 2023 phone call with UAE president Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The UAE had been told of the attack by an intermediary, who warned that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was plotting a "huge surprise". The UAE did not comment on the Haaretz report, although Netanyahu denied it and told his lawyers to sue the newspaper and the report's authors, Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval.
Events leading to the attack
Throughout 2023, increased settler attacks displaced hundreds of Palestinians. In April, clashes occurred around the Al-Aqsa Mosque, a contested holy site in Jerusalem. In May, clashes occurred between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group. Tensions between Israel and Hamas rose in September 2023, and The Washington Post wrote that the two were "on the brink of war". On September 13, five Palestinians were killed at the border. Israel said it found explosives hidden in a shipment and halted all exports from Gaza; Hamas denied Israel's claims. Reuters quoted Palestinians who said that the several-day ban affected thousands of families. In response to the ban, Hamas put its forces on high alert and conducted military exercises with other groups, including openly practicing storming Israeli settlements. Hamas also allowed Palestinians to resume protests at the Gaza–Israel barrier. On September 29, Qatar, the UN, and Egypt mediated an agreement between Israeli and Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip to reopen closed crossing points and deescalate tensions; the total number of Gazans with work permits in Israel stood at 17,000.
=== Operational planning === For two years, Hamas used hardwired phone lines within Gaza's tunnel network, nicknamed the "Gaza metro", to covertly communicate, evade Israeli intelligence, and plan Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. In the months preceding the attack, Hamas publicly released videos of its militants preparing to attack Israel. A video released in December 2022 showed Hamas training to take hostages, while another video showed Hamas practicing paragliding. On September 12, Hamas posted a video of its fighters training to blast through the border. After the attack, the IDF said that Hamas had extensively studied the military bases and communities near the border. The Wall Street Journal has accused Iran of being behind the attack. U.S. officials and Iran have denied this. According to a New York Times investigation, a memo dated August 24, 2022, and apparently written by Yahya Sinwar described a Hamas attack on Israel similar to October 7 attacks. It called for bulldozers to breach the Gaza-Israel fence and for multiple assault waves. It urged "Stomp on the heads of soldiers" and listed "opening fire on soldiers at point-blank range, slaughtering some of them with knives, blowing up tanks". It ordered entry into residential areas to set them on fire "with gasoline or diesel from a tanker", preparing "two or three operations" in which "an entire neighborhood, kibbutz, or something similar will be burned". It directed unit commanders to film and broadcast the acts to mobilize Palestinians in the West Bank, Arabs in Israel, and "our nation" to "join the revolution". The IDF reportedly seized over 10,000 weapons following the attack. The arsenal included RPGs, mines, sniper rifles, drones, thermobaric rockets, and other advanced weapons. According to Israeli sources, documents and maps seized from Hamas militants indicated that Hamas intended a coordinated, month-long operation to invade and occupy Israeli towns, cities, and kibbutzim, including attacking Ashkelon by sea and reaching Kiryat Gat, 20 miles (32 km) into Israel. The scale of weapons, supplies, and plans indicated, according to Israel, that Hamas intended to inflict mass casualties on Israeli civilians and military forces over an extended period. Western and Middle Eastern security officials gathered evidence suggesting that Hamas intended to invade as far as the West Bank, had the initial attack been more successful.
=== Israeli intelligence failure === According to The New York Times, Israeli officials had obtained detailed attack plans more than a year before the attack. The document described operational plans and targets, including the size and location of Israeli forces, and raised questions in Israel about how Hamas learned these details. The document provided a plan that included a large-scale rocket assault before an invasion, drones to knock out the surveillance cameras and automated guns that Israel has stationed along the border, and gunmen invading Israel, including with paragliders. The Times reported, "Hamas followed the blueprint with shocking precision." According to The Times, the document was widely circulated among Israeli military and intelligence leadership, who largely dismissed the plan as beyond Hamas's capabilities, though it was unclear whether the political leadership was informed. In July 2023, a member of the Israeli signals intelligence unit alerted her superiors that Hamas was conducting preparations for the assault, saying, "I utterly refute that the scenario is imaginary". An Israeli colonel ignored her concerns. The official investigation by Israel's domestic intelligence agency, Shin Bet, found that the agency failed to provide the warning that could have prevented the massacre. The head of Shin Bet convened a situation assessment in the early hours of October 7 to discuss the intelligence received from Gaza; in the end, only a low-level warning was issued, and a small team specialising in thwarting limited attacks was sent to the south. According to the report the counterintelligence service of Hamas had been highly effective in preventing the gathering of intelligence in Gaza. According to the findings of the investigation, Shin Bet warned the Prime Minister that Hamas was not deterred and objected to the prevailing divide-and-rule policy of the Israeli government. According to Haaretz, Shin Bet and IDF military commanders discussed a possible threat to the Nova music festival near kibbutz Re'im just hours before the attack, but the festival's organizers were not warned. As revealed by a BBC investigation, surveillance reports suggested that Hamas was planning a significant operation against Israel, but senior IDF officers repeatedly ignored the warnings. A Haaretz investigation found that incompetence in the IDF's higher ranks, including refusal to acknowledge Hamas's preparations for the attacks, was a major contributor to the severity of the October attacks. The IDF had reduced funding and manpower dedicated to observing Hamas, focusing primarily on rocket sites and ignoring Hamas training and troop movements, and the activities of the Hamas military leadership. Exercises in which Hamas attacks were simulated found the Gaza division's response lacking. Cultural conformity was fostered among officers and dissent discouraged. Senior officers often silenced subordinates to maintain their positions, contributing to a toxic atmosphere in which lower-ranking officers were apprehensive about questioning the decisions of their superiors - and tended to refrain from doing so. The Israeli defense establishment had warned the Prime Minister that political upheavals related to the significant judicial overhauls had signaled to adversaries that the country was vulnerable, although that very apparatus had ignored its own detection of Hamas's "Walls of Jericho" mass-invasion plan a year prior to the event, as well as, the detection of border movements in the hours leading up to the invasion.
Attacks
At around 6:30 a.m. Israel Summer Time (UTC+3) on Saturday, October 7, 2023, Hamas announced the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. Al-Qassam Brigades commander Mohammed Deif gave a speech mentioning Israel's 16-year blockade of Gaza, Israeli incursions in West Bank cities, violence at Al-Aqsa mosque, Israeli settler violence with the army's support, the confiscation of property and demolition of homes, arbitrarily detaining Palestinians for years until "they wither from cancer and disease", Israel's neglect for international law, American-Western support, and international silence. He then described the operation, that they had drawn the line, and that it was to end "the last occupation on Earth". Shortly thereafter, Ismail Haniyeh made a similar announcement in a televised address.
=== Participating and supporting organizations === In addition to Hamas, several Palestinian militant groups voiced support for the operation and participated in it to some extent. The National Resistance Brigades, the armed wing of the Marxist–Leninist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), confirmed their participation in the operation through their military spokesman Abu Khaled, saying it had lost three fighters in combat with the IDF. The PFLP (a Palestinian Marxist–Leninist / secular nationalist political party) and the Lions' Den group (a nonpartisan militant group based in the West Bank) voiced support for the operation and declared maximum alertness and general mobilization among their troops. Nine individuals employed by UNRWA were accused by Israel of participation, and after a months-long internal investigation, were fired for possible involvement.
Rocket fire
Deif said more than 5,000 rockets had been fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel in a span of 20 minutes at the start of the operation. Israeli sources reported the launch of 4,300 projectiles from Gaza, killing twelve and injuring dozens, most of them from the Bedouin community. Explosions were reported in areas surrounding Gaza and in the Sharon Plain, including Gedera, Herzliya, Beersheba, Tel Aviv, and Ashkelon. Air raid sirens were activated in Beersheba, Jerusalem, Rehovot, Rishon LeZion, and Palmachim Airbase. Hamas issued a call to arms, with Deif calling on "Muslims everywhere to launch an attack". In the evening Hamas launched another barrage of about 150 rockets towards Israel, with explosions reported in Yavne, Givatayim, Bat Yam, Beit Dagan, Tel Aviv, and Rishon LeZion.
Incursions into southern Israel
Simultaneously, around 6,000 Palestinian militants and civilians infiltrated Israel from Gaza breaching the border in 119 places. The infiltration was executed using trucks, pickup trucks, motorcycles, bulldozers, speedboats, and powered paragliders. In a raid on the Sderot police station, 30 Israeli policemen and civilians were killed. Early in the attack the computer systems were destroyed, disabling communication and delaying the response to the attacks. Images and videos on social media showed heavily armed and masked militants dressed in black fatigues riding pickup trucks and opening fire in Sderot, killing dozens of Israeli civilians and soldiers and setting homes on fire. Other videos appeared to show Israelis taken prisoner, a burning Israeli tank, and militants driving Israeli military vehicles. Israeli first responders recovered documents from militants' bodies with instructions to attack civilians, including elementary schools and a youth center, to "kill as many people as possible", and to take hostages for use in future negotiations. The UN's Pramila Patten and Commission of Inquiry concluded in their reports that the authenticity of these alleged instruction documents, claimed to have been retrieved from Hamas militants, could not be substantiated. Some of the militants wore body cameras to record the acts, presumably for propaganda purposes. In recordings of Hamas commanders during the attack, published by The New York Times, one commander is heard saying: "Document the scenes of horror, now, and broadcast them on TV channels to the whole world", and "Slaughter them. End the children of Israel". The morning of the attack, an Israeli military spokesman said that the militants from Gaza had entered Israel through at least seven locations and invaded four small rural Israeli communities, the border city of Sderot, and two military bases from both land and sea. Israeli media reported that seven communities came under Hamas control, including Nahal Oz, Kfar Aza, Magen, Be'eri, and Sufa. The Erez Crossing was reported to have come under Hamas control, enabling militants to enter Israel from Gaza. Israeli Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai said there were 21 active high-confrontation locations in southern Israel. The New York Times reported that an Israeli intelligence document prepared weeks after the attack found that Hamas had breached the border fence in over 30 separate locations. Starting at 6.30 a.m. the same day, a massacre unfolded at an outdoor music festival near Re'im, resulting in at least 360 dead and many others missing. Witnesses recounted militants on motorcycles opening fire on fleeing participants, who were already dispersing due to rocket fire that had wounded some attendees; some were also taken hostage. Militants killed civilians at Nir Oz, Be'eri, and Netiv HaAsara, where they took hostages and set fire to homes, as well as in kibbutzim around the Gaza Strip. Around 50 civilians were killed in the Kfar Aza massacre, 108 in the Be'eri massacre, and 15 people in the Netiv HaAsara massacre. Militants killed 16 or 17 Thai and Nepalese employees during the Kibbutz Alumim massacre. Other militants carried out an amphibious landing in Zikim. Palestinian sources claim that the local Israeli army base was stormed. The IDF said it had killed two attackers on the beach and destroyed four vessels, including two rubber boats. Militants also attacked a military base outside Nahal Oz, leaving 66 soldiers dead and taking seven hostage. An IDF fire investigation found that the militants had "ignited substances... that contain toxic gasses which can cause suffocation within minutes, or even less" both at the base and in civilian locations.
Table Footnotes:
Nova music festival
As part of the Hamas-led attack, 364 civilians were killed and many more wounded at the Supernova Sukkot Gathering, an open-air music festival celebrating the Jewish holiday of Sukkot near kibbutz Re'im. At least 40 hostages were also taken. This mass killing had the largest number of casualties out of a number of massacres targeting Israeli civilians in communities adjacent to Gaza that were part of the October 7 attack, alongside those at the communities of Netiv HaAsara, Be'eri, Kfar Aza, Nir Oz, and Holit. At 6:30 a.m., around sunrise, rockets were noticed in the sky. Around 7:00 a.m., a siren warned of an incoming rocket attack, prompting festival-goers to flee. Subsequently, armed militants, dressed in military attire and using motorcycles, trucks and powered paragliders, surrounded the festival grounds and indiscriminately fired on people attempting to escape. Attendees seeking refuge nearby, in bomb shelters, bushes, and orchards, were killed while in hiding. Those who reached the road and parking lot were trapped in a traffic jam as militants fired at vehicles. The militants executed some wounded people at point-blank range as they crouched on the ground. The massacre at the festival has been described as the largest terror attack in Israel's history and the worst Israeli civilian massacre ever.
Kfar Aza
During the Hamas-led attack, around 250 Hamas militants attacked Kfar Aza, a kibbutz about 3 kilometers (1.9 mi) from the border with the Gaza Strip, massacring 62 residents and abducting 19 hostages. The kibbutz had more than 950 residents, and it took the IDF nearly three days to wrest back full control of it from militants that fortified themselves in houses of the kibbutz.
Be'eri
On the morning of the attack, around 70 Hamas militants carried out a massacre at Be'eri, an Israeli kibbutz near the Gaza Strip. At least 130 people were killed in the attack, including women (such as peace activist Vivian Silver), children, and infants, claiming the lives of 10% of the community's residents. Dozens of homes were also burned down. Several newspapers called the massacre an act of terrorism; some compared the brutality of the atrocities to that of ISIS. Hostages were taken, leading to a standoff with the IDF. According to survivors, there were also deaths from friendly fire; an Israeli tank fired on a house known to contain around 40 Hamas fighters and 14 hostages, among them two children, killing all hostages in the house but one.
==== Yakhini ==== A squad of Hamas militants that arrived in a van attacked the moshav of Yakhini. There were seven casualties in the moshav, including a border police officer. An IDF major in the Maglan unit was also injured. The community's security coordinator was on holiday in Thailand at the time and remotely directed the moshav's 18-person protection team's response. Yamam and Sayeret Matkal IDF units eventually arrived and killed all the attackers.
Ein HaShlosha
Approximately 90 militants infiltrated kibbutz Ein HaShlosha, killing four civilians, looting, shooting, and burning houses. An 80-year-old Argentinian-Israeli woman died after her home was set on fire and she was unable to escape. A standoff between the attackers and the residents' security team lasted six hours. The leader of the security team, who was in his sixties, was killed in the firefight. A 63-year-old grandmother was also among those killed in the attack. A 39-year-old Israeli-Chilean woman was shot eight times. Thirty survivors were discovered in the kibbutz three days after the attack, 14 of whom were Thai nationals.
Psyduck music festival
Psyduck was a small trance music festival that took place in the open fields near kibbutz Nir Oz, about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) from the border of Gaza. The event drew around 100 participants. Hamas militants attacked the festival, killing 17 Israelis. Some were fatally shot at the festival site, while others were killed as they attempted to escape to nearby kibbutzim. Most survivors hid under small bushes until Israel Defense Forces rescued them a few hours later.
Re'im military base
At 10 a.m., less than five hours after the attacks began, fighting was reported at Re'im military base, headquarters of the Gaza Division. It was later reported that Hamas took control of the base and took several Israeli soldiers captive before the IDF regained control later in the day. The base was reportedly the location of IDF drone and surveillance operations. Hamas reportedly posted video of dead Israeli soldiers it had killed at the base.
==== Nir Am ==== Nir Am was attacked but no residents were harmed. Inbal Rabin-Lieberman, the 25-year-old security coordinator, alongside her uncle Ami, led a guard detail that killed multiple militants attempting to infiltrate a nearby chicken farm. They successfully deterred the rest of the invading militants from entering the community.
Ofakim
In the town of Ofakim, 47 were people killed in the October 7, attacks. Ofakim was the furthest point reached by the initial intense attacks on October 7. A large proportion of the population of the town is working-class Jews of North African descent. Ofakim was one of the first locations where a "hostages situation" was reported. The militants targeted the parts of the town where the housing was older and did not have individual bomb shelters in every home, and locals reported that the invaders had shot people who were trying to get to communal shelters.
==== Rahat ==== A number of Qassam Brigades militants infiltrated the Bedouin city of Rahat, north-east of Ofakim and 30 kilometres from Gaza, representing the furthest extent of the incursions by Palestinian militant groups on October 7. Over a month after the initial attack, two militants were arrested by Israeli police.
=== Failed plans === A Hamas group carried intelligence information and maps guiding it to the border of the West Bank, suggesting it had intentions of going all the way to the West Bank. According to a report in Asharq Al-Awsat, two Hamas units had plans of reaching Shikma Prison in Ashkelon (13 km from the Gaza Strip) with the aim of freeing Palestinian inmates. One cell got lost and ended up in Sderot, at which point they were told to change their plans and operate in Sderot. A second cell which was operating in Zikim was commanded to go up to Ashkelon, but the cell was completely gunned down by Israeli security forces in Zikim. There was an unrealized contingency plan that rested on Hezbollah commencing a concentrated bombardment of strategic targets in Israel that would facilitate a multi-front invasion to bring about Israel's "quick collapse." A "more limited dynamic" than "all-out war" ensued and "Israeli intelligence data revealed that the leaders of Iran and Hezbollah were 'deeply surprised' by the attack."
Hostages
Soon after the start of the Hamas operation, there were reports that many civilians and soldiers had been taken as captives back to the Gaza Strip. Later in the day Hamas announced it had captured enough Israeli soldiers to force a prisoner swap, and Israel confirmed hostages had been taken. In Be'eri, up to 50 people were taken hostage; after an 18-hour standoff between militants and IDF forces, they were freed. Hostages were also reported taken in Ofakim, where policemen led by Chief Superintendent Jayar Davidov engaged Palestinian militants in a shootout on October 7; Davidov and three of his men were killed, and the IDF later rescued two Israeli hostages in the suburb of Urim. There were reports of militants killing and stealing family pets. Hamas took many hostages back to Gaza. On October 16, they said they were holding 250 hostages and that it had done so to force Israel to release its Palestinian prisoners. In addition to hostages with only Israeli citizenship, almost half of the hostages were foreign nationals or held multiple citizenships. Some hostages were Negev Bedouins. Some of the hostages, including three members of the Bibas family, were subsequently handed over to other militant groups. Palestinian Islamic Jihad ended up holding at least 30 of the hostages, but it is unclear whether they or Hamas originally kidnapped them. According to Ariel Merari, the raiders "were ordered to kidnap as many [people] as possible... [and] they intentionally kidnapped a populace that is sensitive from the aspect of Israeli public opinion".
