How October 7 happened and sparked a deadly war in Gaza - MASHAHER

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For many, it was the sirens that woke them on 7 October.

The quiet of daybreak was broken by the urgent whirring of air raid alarms around 6.30am.

Others heard the warning while dancing at an outdoor rave celebrating “friends, love and infinite freedom” after a long night of festivities.

The lives of many who heard those sirens were to be changed forever.

The alarms marked the beginning of one of the deadliest days in Israel’s history, when a coordinated offensive unleashed by the Islamic militant group Hamas killed around 1,200 people, including 36 children, according to Israeli authorities.

The site of the Supernova music festival was one of the areas worst hit by militants, who killed hundreds of young partygoers. Source: Getty / Gil Cohen-Magen

The attack was led mainly by the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades — also known as the Qassam Bridages — the military arm of Hamas. At least five other Palestinian armed groups are also believed to have been involved.

The onslaught began when thousands of rockets and mortar shells were launched towards southern and central Israel from the Gaza Strip, a coastal Palestinian territory separated from Israel by a six-metre tall wire fence.

A map showing Israel and the Palestinian territories.

The Gaza Strip is a narrow Palestinian territory separated from Israel by a six-metre tall wire fence. Source: SBS News

The missiles soon overwhelmed heading into its territory.

At the same time, footage of the offensive shows fighters breaching Israel’s 65km “iron wall”, a smart fence topped with razor wire that uses radars and cameras to detect movement.

Soldiers used explosives to blast through the fencing and a bulldozer to clear the way for motorbikes. Meanwhile, explosives were also dropped on nearby observation towers.

A bulldozer breaks through a wire fence as people dash through the gap.

Soldiers used explosives to break through Israel’s border fence and deployed a bulldozer to clear the path on 7 October. Source: Getty / Anadolu Agency

A man on a motorbike rides through a broken fence.

Most fighters crossed through breaches in land security barriers separating Gaza and Israel. Source: Getty / Hani Alshaer/Anadolu Agency

Militants were able to breach the border in at least 13 different areas, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), with some arriving in motorised paragliders and pickup trucks.

The border appears to have been minimally staffed that day: a Saturday and the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah.

It’s a day that Israelis now call “Black Shabbat”.

A family looks at a large sign with cut-out photos of hundreds of people.

Nearly 50 locations in Israel were attacked on 7 October, including army bases, a music festival and at least 19 communal settlements. Source: Getty / Jack Guez

Throughout the course of the day, nearly 50 locations in Israel were attacked, including army bases, a music festival and at least 19 kibbutzim — communal settlements generally based around farms.

Most are located within a few kilometres of the border, although militants reached Ofakim — 25km inside Israeli territory.

A map showing civilian sites targeted during the October 7 attacks. Source: SBS News

Two boats carrying militants also killed at least 18 civilians at Zikim beach, throwing grenades into a public shelter and shooting indiscriminately.

Most of those killed were Israeli civilians — 695 people — but the death toll also includes 373 security personnel and 71 foreigners, including workers from countries such as China, the Phillippines, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand, AFP reports.

Militants also seized at least 250 hostages. A year after the operation, 64 people — including two children — are still being held in captivity.

This is how the October 7 attack unfolded and triggered a year-long war that has devastated millions.

Deadly rampage at Supernova festival

Around half of the civilians killed were partygoers attending Supernova, an outdoor trance music festival.

A 3,000-strong crowd had gathered in fields and woods near Re’im — a kibbutz in southern Israel — to watch performances across three stages.

Some campers were enjoying a sunrise dance party when they started to notice smoke in the sky.

“A few minutes later, the music stopped. Then we saw the Iron Dome intercepting rockets,” one participant, Almog Senior, 30, told HRW.

An organiser of the event told HRW they started evacuating people from the site around 6.45am but gunmen appeared and opened fire around 8am.

A dome structure covered in ripped colourful fabric.

Destroyed cars and personal effects were left scattered around the Supernova festival site after the October 7 attack. Source: Getty / Alexi J. Rosenfeld

“We were hundreds of people running,” Dan Liebersohn, 22, told HRW.

The militants went on an hour-long rampage, leaving behind hundreds of dead — many of whom had been burned. The road to the festival was left littered with torched cars.

An aerial photo shows abandoned and burned cars at the site of the October 7 attack.

The road to the Supernova music festival was left littered with abandoned and torched cars. Source: Getty / Jack Guez/AFP

Other festivalgoers were taken hostage, including Shani Louk, a 22-year-old dual Israeli and German citizen. She was filmed stripped down to her underwear in the back of a pickup truck and surrounded by men.

She was later confirmed dead.

Kibbutz safe houses did not stop militants

Militants also went door-to-door in kibbutzim and other communities, shooting residents dead and setting their homes on fire.

While many residents took shelter in their safe rooms, which are generally designed to keep people safe from rockets, they were not protected from gunfire.

Nadav Tzabari, 34, remembers the chilling moment he realised militants were infiltrating the kibbutz at Nahal Oz.

“The first feeling was horror … because you actually understand that the danger is not coming from missiles. These are actually people whose intention is to kill you.”

Two cars are stopped on the road with their doors open, in the foreground, what appears to be bodies can be seen.

Militants also went door-to-door in kibbutzim and other communities, shooting residents dead and setting their homes on fire. Source: Getty / OREN ZIV/AFP

Due to the public holiday, it took hours for Israeli forces to reach certain areas, which meant much of the early fighting was left to part-time community volunteers who were part of local rapid response teams called Kitat Konenut.

In the kibbutz of Be’eri, residents were forced to defend themselves for seven hours before help arrived.

Around 100 civilians were killed — one-tenth of its population — including 10-month-old Mila Cohen, who was shot while hiding with her mother in a safe room.

Sagi Shifroni, 41, described the terror of the assault in Be’eri to HRW, saying he took refuge in his safe room with his five-year-old daughter after being woken by the sound of sirens.

Around 11am he says militants fired at the door and later set his house on fire, forcing him to smash a window in the safe room to escape.

Shifroni had no shirt or shoes on and says he can’t remember jumping out of the window with his daughter wrapped in a blanket. He later realised the skin on his feet was peeling off and his body was covered in second and third-degree burns.

Many of the buildings in kibbutz Be’eri were set alight. Source: Getty / Jack Guez/AFP

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers did not reach Shifroni and his family until around 7.30pm and they didn’t receive medical treatment until around midnight.

An found the IDF did not fulfil its mission to defend residents at Be’eri and did not always prioritise civilian lives — even waiting outside the kibbutz for hours while residents were killed inside.

Evidence of sexual violence

A Commission of Inquiry established by the United Nations Human Rights Council examined the October 7 attacks and concluded war crimes had been committed by members of Hamas and others participating in the attack.

In its June 2024 report, the commission found the militants had “deliberately killed, injured, mistreated, [taken] hostages and committed sexual and gender-based violence”.

A woman wearing sunglasses holds her hand to her mouth as she stands over a coffin draped in the Israeli flag.

A UN Commission of Inquiry examined the October 7 attacks and concluded that war crimes were committed by Hamas and others involved. Source: Getty / Dan Kitwood

The commission also found “significant evidence on the desecration of corpses, including sexualised desecration, decapitations, lacerations, burning, severing of body parts and undressing”.

“Women were subjected to gender-based violence during the course of their execution or abduction. Women and women’s bodies were used as victory trophies by male perpetrators.”

The commission said it found the abduction of children “particularly egregious”.

‘We are at war’: Israel’s devastating retaliation

Israel’s response to the attack on its citizens has reduced much of the Gaza Strip to rubble.

By the afternoon of 7 October, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had convened a security cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv and declared, “we are at war”.

That night, Israeli forces began striking targets in Gaza. Since then, vast swathes of the territory have been devastated by relentless airstrikes.

At least 41,615 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip over the past 12 months, according to the health ministry in Gaza, and another 96,251 wounded.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says more than a quarter of those wounded have sustained life-changing injuries, including severe limb injuries, amputations and major burns.

Last year, UN Secretary-General António Guterres described the “nightmare in Gaza” as a “crisis of humanity”, saying the territory had become a “graveyard for children”.

Doctors at al-Shifa hospital, where Israeli forces battled Hamas fighters last year, described dire conditions for patients, including premature babies struggling to survive without access to incubators.

“I never expected in my life that I would put 39 babies side by side on a bed, each with a different disease, and in this acute shortage of medical staff and of milk,” Dr Mohamed Tabasha told Reuters.

WHO says just 17 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain partially functional.

Aerial shot showing destroyed buildings.

A 14-day siege around the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in March decimated much of the hospital and its surrounds. Source: Getty / Omar El Qattaa/Anadolu

The war has displaced an estimated 90 per cent of Gaza’s population of 2.1 million people, according to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

A UNICEF official told AFP an estimated 19,000 children are unaccompanied or have been separated from their parents.

Analysis of satellite data by Corey Scher of CUNY Graduate Center and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University, found 58.7 per cent of buildings in the Gaza Strip had likely been damaged since the start of the war.

A compressed satellite image shows damage in the Gaza Strip.

Analysis of damage in Gaza Strip using Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite data by Corey Scher of CUNY Graduate Center and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University.

A UN Satellite Centre assessment issued on 30 September found “two-thirds of the total structures in the Gaza Strip have sustained damage” after nearly a year of war.

Authorities condemn Israel’s Gaza operations

The UN’s Commission of Inquiry report in July concluded Israel’s retaliation against Gaza had also resulted in war crimes, crimes against humanity and other international law violations.

The commission says it “found that the crimes against humanity of extermination; murder; gender persecution targeting Palestinian men and boys; forcible transfer; and torture and inhuman and cruel treatment were committed”.

Among its other findings, the commission says Israeli authorities have used “starvation as a method of warfare”, committed acts of murder or wilful killing, intentionally directed attacks against civilians, committed acts of sexual violence, torture and inhuman or cruel treatment, arbitrary detention and outrages upon personal dignity.

Children walk through rubble, past makeshift tents. There are destroyed buildings in the background.

A UN Satellite Centre assessment found that “two-thirds of the total structures in the Gaza Strip have sustained damage” after nearly a year of conflict. Source: Getty / Hani Alshaer/Anadolu

Israel’s operations have also seen it accused of genocide. South Africa filed a case in the International Court of Justice in December alleging breaches of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. Its case has been joined by several countries, including Colombia, Libya, Mexico, Spain and Türkiye.

Israel has strongly denied the accusation.

In May, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) , on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Netanyahu rejected the landmark request, saying in a statement: “Whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected war crimes claims. Source: Getty / Ohad Zwigenberg/AFP

Hamas responded, saying it “strongly condemns” the ICC prosecutor’s application against its leaders.

In recent months, the conflict has continued to spread, with Israel launching attacks in Lebanon targeting militant group Hezbollah, which it claims poses “an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel”.

World leaders have urged de-escalation, including Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who has and a clear timeline on recognising Palestinian statehood.

So far the calls have remained unheeded.

Additional reporting by AFP

Source Agencies