October 7 attacks

Overview

The October 7 attacks were coordinated terrorist assaults launched from Gaza into Israel on October 7, 2023. Hamas and allied armed groups fired rockets, breached the border, attacked military positions and entered Israeli communities. Attackers murdered civilians in their homes, killed people fleeing the Nova music festival and abducted hostages to Gaza. Approximately 1,200 people were killed, more than 5,400 were injured and 253 were abducted. The victims included children, older people, foreign nationals, soldiers and emergency responders. October 7 became the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.

The assault began at 6:29 a.m. with a large rocket barrage. Armed men then crossed into Israel by multiple routes and struck dozens of locations at once. The attacks included the Nova music festival massacre, the Be'eri massacre and the Kfar Aza massacre. Fighting also reached Nahal Oz, Nir Oz, Holit, Re'im, Ofakim and the area around Sderot. The scale and speed of the assault overwhelmed local defenders and delayed an effective military response in several communities. Residents, soldiers and volunteers nevertheless fought, sheltered neighbors, treated casualties and organized rescues.

The attacks began the Gaza war and the Gaza war hostage crisis. Israel launched military operations against Hamas in Gaza, while families sought information about people killed, missing or held captive. The war brought extensive death, destruction, displacement and humanitarian suffering in Gaza. October 7 also reshaped Israel's security debate, prompted investigations into intelligence and military failures, and affected diplomacy and public life far beyond the immediate battle areas.

Background

Hamas violently seized power in Gaza in 2007, two years after Israel withdrew its forces and removed its communities from the territory. The terrorist organization subsequently built an armed infrastructure and repeatedly attacked Israel. Before October 7, Israeli operations had failed to secure lasting intervals without attacks by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad Movement. Israeli security planning also contained gaps between its stated doctrine, strategic assumptions and operational preparations. Those gaps became consequential when Hamas launched a simultaneous assault on military posts and civilian communities.

Hamas rehearsed elements of the operation in public. Footage recorded before October 7 showed exercises involving the abduction of soldiers and the violent capture of military positions; one rehearsal took place in September 2023. On the eve of the assault, operational instructions distributed to Hamas commanders included abducting Israeli soldiers. The military approved the Nova festival permit despite concerns within its ranks about possible rocket fire. The festival's location had changed two days before the attack, a later detail used in false claims that the massacre had been staged.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of the Iranian regime funded, armed and trained Hamas. In April 2023, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh met Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut to discuss coordination among Hamas, Hezbollah and other groups backed by the Iranian regime. This regional network formed part of the strategic setting in which the attack took place. Material support and coordination among armed groups do not, by themselves, establish that every outside actor knew the date or operational details in advance; Nasrallah later denied advance knowledge and denied Hezbollah's and Iran's involvement in planning the assault.

The attack took place 50 years and one day after the Yom Kippur War began. Its timing sharpened comparisons between two major Israeli security failures, although the events differed in their targets and methods. October 7 included deliberate murder and abduction inside civilian communities. Earlier anti-Jewish massacres, including the 1929 Hebron massacre, also form part of the longer history of violence against Jews. That history supplies context; no historical grievance excuses the murder or abduction of civilians.

The attack

The opening rocket barrage sent people at the Nova music festival near Re'im searching for shelter. Attackers then fired on festivalgoers and people trying to escape along surrounding roads. Off-duty soldier Aner Shapiro repeatedly threw grenades back at attackers assaulting a roadside shelter used by festivalgoers before he was killed. Near Re'im Junction, Adam Agmon's unit rescued an Israeli hostage locked inside a vehicle before moving toward other battle sites. Hamas attackers also entered nearby communities, going from house to house, shooting residents and setting homes ablaze.

At Kibbutz Be'eri, Yasmin Porat and Tal Katz fled the festival and reached the safe room of Adi and Hadas Dagan at about 7:30 a.m. Attackers later took all four to Pasi Cohen's house, where 14 people were held hostage. Hadas Dagan and Porat were the only two survivors among those hostages; Adi Dagan and Katz were killed. The Be'eri fighting exposed the difficulty Israeli forces faced in forming a timely picture of events and coordinating a response across many simultaneous attack sites. Residents and local defenders fought for hours while reinforcements arrived amid widespread confusion.

At the Nahal Oz military outpost, attackers assaulted the command room with gunfire, incendiary materials and grenades. Adi Landman left shelter to help surveillance soldiers after reports of an armed infiltration; she was killed at age 19 and posthumously promoted to staff sergeant. Golani Battalion 13 communications officer Idan Baloy fought in the command room, while operations sergeant Osher Simcha Barzilai directed fighters and routed forces to nearby communities and other attacked posts under fire. In a tank at Nahal Oz, Tomer Leibovitz, Captain Daniel Peretz and Staff Sergeant Itay Chen fought together. Leibovitz and Peretz died; Chen was killed and abducted to Gaza.

Other troops moved toward the communities under attack. Major Chen Buchris led a Maglan advance team toward Kibbutz Nahal Oz and was killed in close combat with Hamas's Nukhba force; Yiftach Yaavetz and Afik Rosenthal also fell. In Kibbutz Re'im, Ariel continued commanding after being wounded and led troops through the community into the night to clear homes and rescue families. At the Paga outpost, Roy Peri and his commander provided covering fire so comrades could reach a protected space. From Ashdod, Squadron 916 patrol boats fought Hamas naval commandos over several days and blocked an attempted assault near Zikim. During the attacks, Shayetet 13 captured Muhammad Abu Ghali, deputy commander of the southern division of Hamas's naval force.

The assault reached urban streets as well as border communities. In Ofakim, Hamas attackers killed residents amid street fighting. At 6:55 a.m., 25-year-old Magen David Adom responder Aharon Haimov Halevi answered a dispatch about wounded people at Urim Junction, left his family in shelter and drove out in an ambulance. Attackers shot and killed him near the exit from Ofakim. His death formed part of the wider attack on people trying to protect or aid others. Throughout southern Israel, civilians and off-duty soldiers also traveled toward the fighting on their own initiative, often before formal rescue systems could meet the scale of the emergency.

Victims

The approximately 1,200 people killed on October 7 were individuals and families whose deaths emerged over days of searching and identification. In Kibbutz Nir Oz, Johnny, Tamar, Shahar, Arbel and Omer Siman Tov were murdered in their home. In Kibbutz Kfar Aza, Aviv and Livnat Kutz and their children Jonathan, Yiftach and Rotem were murdered at home. In Kibbutz Holit, 46-year-old Liz Halfon Elharar shielded her seven-year-old daughter Adi in a safe-room closet, saving the child's life before the attackers killed her. Narkis ‘Kissy’ Hand was shot and killed in Be'eri after leaving her safe room for her mother's home.

Medical workers and soldiers were among those killed while helping others. Paramedic Amit Mann, 22, treated wounded residents in Be'eri before Hamas attackers killed her. Landman and Barzilai remained at their posts during the assault on Nahal Oz. The Cohen family learned on successive days that Amit, Roya and Norel Cohen had been murdered; three funerals followed within less than a week. In another burning home, ten-day-old Kai survived after his parents placed him on a windowsill to escape smoke and fire. Such accounts show how the attacks reached people sheltering indoors as well as those caught on roads and at military positions.

The abduction of 253 people created a prolonged crisis for families and the Israeli state. Hostages included civilians and soldiers. Some were killed during the attack and their bodies were taken to Gaza; Staff Sergeant Itay Chen and tank commander Shay Levinson were among them. In June 2025, the Israel Defense Forces recovered Levinson's body from Gaza. The effort to determine captives' fates, secure their release and recover those killed remained a central part of the war's aftermath.

Documented sexual crimes were also part of the October 7 atrocities. Israeli rape crisis centers assembled testimony and other evidence concerning sexual and gender-based violence during the attacks and subsequent captivity. Denials that victims suffered sexual assault formed one strand of the wider campaign to minimize the massacre. Evidence of these crimes warrants careful treatment: individual victims' experiences should be described from documented findings, without turning uncertainty about a particular case into denial of the broader evidence.

Perpetrators and responsibility

Hamas led and bears responsibility for the October 7 attacks. Its military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, carried out the assault alongside the Islamic Jihad Movement and other armed groups. Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif and Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar were central leaders behind the operation; Mohammed Sinwar was also linked to its execution. On the morning of the attack, Sinwar announced Hamas's decision to launch the assault on the group's Al-Aqsa television channel. Hours after the attacks began, Al Jazeera broadcast Deif urging further violence inside Israel. Hamas's own announcements and the attackers' recordings leave no basis for shifting responsibility for the coordinated assault to its victims.

The Islamic Jihad Movement participated in the attacks, while the Iranian regime's Revolutionary Guard Corps had prepared Hamas through funding, arms and training. The Iranian regime's network of armed partners gave it regional reach by the time of the massacre. Hamas and allied movements used religiously framed language in their calls for violence. Analysis of jihadist ideology helps explain their stated motives and organization; it does not define Muslims as a whole or make Israel's defense a war against Islam as a religion. Senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk later ended an Egyptian television interview when pressed on whether the attack had been worth its cost.

Claims that Israel staged the massacre or killed more October 7 civilians than Hamas did spread online through misrepresented footage and distorted accounts of news investigations. A video circulated as supposed proof that Israeli helicopters fired on Nova attendees instead showed Israeli strikes against Hamas terrorists in Gaza on October 8. Other false narratives denied killings, questioned images of victims or rejected evidence of sexual assault. These claims obscure the documented attacks on communities, festivalgoers and military posts. Between October 2023 and July 2024, 1,213 X accounts posted the phrase ‘no such thing as an Israeli civilian’ 1,333 times, seeking to justify violence against civilians.

Response

Israeli forces fought to regain control of the attacked communities and military posts, while medical workers, residents and volunteers evacuated survivors and recovered the dead. On October 8, government ministries struggled to function at the scale the crisis required. Civilians organized transport, documented casualties and delivered equipment to soldiers and displaced families. About 400 ZAKA volunteers worked at recovery sites after the massacre; the work of collecting remains and cleaning homes continued for months. Israeli civilian organizations and online creators also assembled and shared evidence of the attacks with international audiences.

Israel launched a sustained military campaign against Hamas in Gaza. By the end of 2023, the war had caused extensive casualties, displacement and a severe humanitarian crisis there. Israel also evacuated communities along its northern border amid concern that Hezbollah could launch a similar assault. Hezbollah's attacks and the Iranian regime's other regional partners widened the security challenge; Houthi maritime attacks escalated after October 7 and preceded Operation Prosperity Guardian. The massacre disrupted efforts to deepen the Abraham Accords and advance Saudi–Israeli normalization.

The attacks exposed failures across Israel's intelligence, defense and political leadership. Visible Hamas preparations had not produced adequate warning or readiness for a large, simultaneous invasion. Israel's military intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, tendered his resignation on April 22, 2024, accepting responsibility for the failure to anticipate the attack and calling for a state commission of inquiry. Military investigations examined events at individual battle sites, including Be'eri, as well as the wider failures of assessment, preparedness and command. The question of responsibility remained central to Israeli public debate and calls for a comprehensive state investigation.

Leaders of France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States jointly condemned Hamas and backed Israel after the attacks. Reconstructing Judaism condemned the violence and affirmed Israel's right to defend itself. The wider public response also included hostility toward Jews and Muslims. A study of YouTube discussions identified more than 115,000 anti-Muslim comments between October 3 and 19, 2023, with measured volume rising 43-fold across the four days before and after October 7. UK monitors recorded 1,350 anti-Muslim incidents in the two months after the attack, seven times the count for the same period a year earlier. Threats against Jewish and Israeli figures also increased; U.S. Senator Jacky Rosen received voicemails threatening her with murder.

Remembrance

Families, communities and institutions have worked to identify victims, preserve testimony and mark the places where people were killed or abducted. Remembrance includes the experiences of festivalgoers, residents, soldiers, emergency responders and hostages, as well as the actions of those who rescued others. Documenting the crimes matters because denial began soon after the massacre and continued through manipulated images, misleading claims about Israeli fire and rejection of victims' testimony. Public commemoration also became contentious: some anniversary protest materials displayed imagery celebrating the attacks, including a photograph taken after Hamas breached the Gaza border fence.

Accountability has extended beyond Israel's military investigations. On September 18, 2025, more than 140 U.S. victims and family members joined a federal lawsuit naming Hamas, the Islamic Jihad Movement and five other armed groups over the attacks. The suit also sought to hold the regimes in Iran and Syria, North Korea and Hezbollah accountable for alleged material support. Legal proceedings and official inquiries address different questions, but both seek a durable record of what happened and who bore responsibility. The October 7 attacks remain a defining event in Israel's history: a mass murder and hostage-taking that began a prolonged war and demanded sustained attention to the victims, the captives and the failures that left communities exposed.