Israel marks two years since Hamas' 7 October attacks with solemn commemorations

Families honoured the victims on the second anniversary of the deadly Hamas attacks on southern Israel, amid the ongoing war in Gaza and continued peace talks.

Israelis have gathered on Monday to commemorate the second anniversary of the deadly Hamas October 7 attacks, when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel from Gaza, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 others back to the Strip as hostages.Commemorations are being held around Israel ahead of the Israeli government’s own anniversary ceremony next week, whose timing is based on the Hebrew calendar.On Monday, some bereaved families, friends and survivors marked the day by travelling to the site of the Nova music festival, where almost 400 Israelis were killed.As the anniversary coincides with the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, there was no official ceremony there. However, scores of people paid their respects to the victims of the attack, whose photographs stand at the site.People stopped for a moment of silence at 6:29 am, the exact time the Hamas attack at the festival began.Alon Muskinov, 28, who was there and lost three of his closest friends that day, said he and other survivors cannot escape the horror of that day.“We are reliving this every day anew, every day we remember them,” he said.At a commemoration event in Tel Aviv, Shay Dickmann, whose aunt was killed at Kibbutz Be'eri on 7 October and whose cousin later died as a Hamas hostage, said the war in Gaza should end.“There is a deal on the table, there is an opportunity to end this war and bring everybody back home,” she said, referring to the 48 hostages who remain in Hamas' captivity in Gaza, around 20 of whom are believed to still be alive.“We all deserve it, we deserve it, our neighbours deserve it, we want this war to end and all to come back to their homes.”Meanwhile, the former hostage Eli Sharabi, who was released after almost 500 days in Hamas captivity and whose brother Alon was among three hostages accidentally killed by Israeli soldiers, said on Instagram that “a different reality” was needed.“We’ve suffered enough, we deserve a different reality. We want to start healing,” he wrote, describing how his family’s “peaceful and happy life turned into hell, grief and unimaginable loss” on 7 October.As Israelis commemorated the victims of the attacks, peace talks between Israel and Hamas began in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday.Discussions around US President Donald Trump’s peace plan are set to include sensitive issues such as Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and Hamas' disarmament.The two-year war on Hamas has devastated Gaza and displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, many of whom are struggling to find shelter and food amid severe shortages.To date, the Israeli offensive in the Strip has resulted in around 66,000 Palestinian deaths, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in their count. Israeli authorities have repeatedly challenged these figures. Israel has lost around 900 soldiers since 7 October 2023.