Israel commemorates the October 7 attack in silence and tears
Israel held a brief silence on Tuesday in memory of the victims of the unprecedented Hamas attack exactly a month ago.
On the esplanade of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, more than a thousand people, mostly students and professors, observed a minute’s silence, prayed and sang the national anthem.
“The atrocities have left a terrible scar, a trauma on a personal level but also on a national level,” said Asher Cohen, president of the university, whose victims include several graduates. “But there is hope, there will be rebirth,” he added.
A teacher who showed the photo of his son and his girlfriend who were murdered by Hamas commandos. “They believed in peace,” he said.
More than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, were killed and about 240 people were kidnapped by Hamas commandos in the worst attack since the founding of the Jewish state in 1948. The operation sparked a fierce war in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip that has claimed more than 10,300 lives, including thousands of children, in the area, according to the Islamist movement’s health ministry.
Mayaan, 38, who lost his parents on a kibbutz attacked by Hamas, says it is difficult to recognize the “devastating” images of death and destruction coming from Gaza. “It unsettles me when people say ‘I’m pro-Palestinian’ or ‘I’m pro-Israeli,'” says the woman, who asks in a pained voice that her last name not be published.
“I am self-righteous. My parents would have said the same thing,” says this employee of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. Dozens attended a ceremony at that academy where candles were lit and the emotional singing of “Hatikvah,” the national anthem, which means “hope” in Hebrew.