by Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Chief International Correspondent
JERUSALEM (Worthy News) – Rocket sirens sounded in southern Israel on Tuesday after fire from Gaza as Israelis began to mark the second anniversary of the October 7, 2023, attack in which Hamas killed about 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.
The massacre in southern Israel by Hamas, designated as a terrorist organization by Israel’s government and most of its allies, was the deadliest single attack in the Jewish nation’s history and was called the “worst atrocity against Jews since the Holocaust,” also known as the Shoah.
At the site of the Nova music festival, where more than 370 people were killed, families observed a minute of silence at 6:29 a.m., the exact time the assault began.
“We live with the trauma every day, but we also stand for life,” a relative of a Nova festival victim told reporters at the site.
Memorial events were also held in devastated kibbutzim such as Be’eri and Kfar Aza, according to eyewitnesses and local media.
THOUSANDS GATHER
In Tel Aviv, thousands rallied to demand the release of hostages still held in Gaza. Posters with the faces of abducted Israelis remain visible at bus stops and in public squares across the country.
However, rocket sirens sounded in southern Israel on Tuesday after fire from Gaza, though no casualties were reported.
The confrontation came as negotiations, mediated by Egypt, continued between Israel and Hamas over a potential ceasefire and prisoner exchange.
The October 7 atrocity, also referred to as “Black Sabbath,” will be observed during Israel’s official national ceremony of remembrance scheduled for October 16 at Mount Herzl cemetery in Jerusalem, following the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, organizers said
As the mourning continues, homes destroyed in 2023 remain charred and abandoned, while some communities have begun rebuilding, still hopeful that peace will emerge one day.
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest News from Worthy News
India and Russia have agreed to deepen cooperation in defense, trade, energy — including nuclear power — as well as critical minerals and high-tech manufacturing, despite mounting U.S. pressure and punitive trade measures.
A Catholic priest remained missing in northern Nigeria Thursday after being abducted from his residence in Kaduna State, Worthy News learned.
A funeral was underway in Pakistan on Saturday for a prominent Gospel preacher who was shot and killed in a Friday attack, less than three months after he survived another assassination attempt by suspected Islamic extremists, friends told Worthy News.
US President Donald Trump is preparing to unveil Gaza’s long-awaited “Board of Peace” and formally announce the transition to phase two of Washington’s Gaza stabilization plan within the next three weeks, Axios and additional US and regional officials said Thursday. The move would mark the most significant diplomatic step since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect nearly two months ago.
Joly “Yonyon” Germine, the former leader of Haiti’s notorious 400 Mawozo gang, was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court to life in prison without the possibility of supervised release for orchestrating the 2021 kidnapping of 16 American missionaries–five of them children–from Christian Aid Ministries.
President Donald Trump hosted the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday to sign the Washington Accords, a peace pact the three leaders say will end a 30-year conflict in eastern Congo — even as fighting continues on the ground.
Budapest, Hungary’s capital and its political, economic, and cultural heart, risks becoming insolvent — the municipal equivalent of bankruptcy — a crisis the opposition blames on the right-wing government’s tax policies.