Israelis remember their most terrible day and in Gaza, the spiral of despair goes on

Yesterday marked two years since Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, marauding through a music festival and Israeli kibbutzim along the border with Gaza. The attack was the most brutal in Israel’s history, shattering the country’s sense of safety and prompting Israel to launch a still-ongoing war on Gaza that has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians and left Israel accused by a UN commission of inquiry of conducting genocide.

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The thud of artillery and the whomp of a Minigun being fired in Gaza just a few miles away provoked no reaction from people attending memorials. In Gaza, no respite was given from the bombing so its residents could memorialise their own dead. At least 10 Palestinians were killed since dawn yesterday.

The lingering trauma of the 7 October attack in Israel was plain to see yesterday. At the Nova festival memorial site, where nearly 400 were brutally killed, pictures of those lost were affixed permanently with red metal flowers underneath.

“I talked to Maor a minute before he died. The last thing he told me was not to be afraid, that it was OK,” Graziani said. He did not hear from his son again, but held out hope that he was missing, not dead.

Three days later he was sent a video on Telegram that showed his son’s car being sprayed by bullets while fleeing to a nearby kibbutz. The army called him shortly after to inform him of Maor’s death.