Two years on Israel mourns victims of terror

Oren Graziani could not sleep on Monday night as he was too busy debating whether he should attend his son’s memorial in the morning.

- William Christou Southern Israel Seham Tantesh Gaza

Dawn broke and his wife and daughter announced that they were going to spend the day at the resort city of Eilat; they wanted to avoid their grief for a day. Graziani decided to go alone.

"I felt in my heart that I must come here. Today feels different. October 7, it broke the entire family apart," said Graziani, a 53-year-old real estate agent, as he wet a cloth and wiped sand from a picture of his 21-year-old son, Maor Graziani, who was killed while attending the Nova music festival. Graziani was not alone in his mourning. He was joined by hundreds of Israelis who came to pay their respects to Maor and the other 1,200 people killed and 251 taken hostage on 7 October 2023.

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.

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.