Israel marks the second anniversary of the October 7, 2023 attack on Tuesday, as Hamas and Israeli negotiators hold indirect talks to end the two-year war in Gaza under a US-proposed peace plan.
Two years ago to the day, at the close of the Jewish festival of Sukkot, Hamas-led militants launched a massive assault on Israel, making it the deadliest day in the country’s history.
Palestinian fighters breached the Gaza-Israel border, storming southern Israeli communities and a desert music festival with gunfire, rockets and grenades.
The attack killed 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also took 251 people hostage into Gaza, of whom 47 remain captive, including 25 the Israeli military says are dead.
With global pressure mounting to end the war in Gaza, US President Donald Trump unveiled a 20-point plan calling for a ceasefire, a release of all the hostages, Hamas’s disarmament and a gradual Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
The plan prompted talks in Egypt, with Israeli and Hamas negotiators holding “positive” indirect discussions on Monday, according to two sources close to the Palestinian militants’ negotiating team.
The Palestinian sources said the talks, which had lasted four hours on the first day, would resume in the Red Sea town at midday on Tuesday.
In Israel on Tuesday, memorial events were scheduled to mark the anniversary of the attack.
Dozens of relatives and friends of those killed at the Nova music festival lit candles and held a minute’s silence at the site of the attack in southern Israel, where militants killed more than 370 people and seized dozens of hostages.
Orit Baron, whose daughter Yuval was killed at the festival with her fiance Moshe Shuva, told AFP the day was a “black” date for her family.
“Now it’s two years. And I’m here to be with her, because this is the last time that she was alive,” the 57-year-old mother said at the site of the attack, adding she felt “that right now she’s with me here”.
Another ceremony was due in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, where weekly rallies have kept up calls for the captives’ release.
A state-organised commemoration is planned for October 16 after the ongoing Sukkot holidays.
– ‘Lost everything’ –
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza by air, land and sea has killed at least 67,160 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the United Nations considers credible.
Their data does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but indicates that over half of the dead are women and children.
Entire neighbourhoods have been flattened, with homes, hospitals, schools and water networks in ruins.
Hundreds of thousands of homeless Gazans now shelter in overcrowded camps and open areas with little access to food, water or sanitation.
“We have lost everything in this war, our homes, family members, friends, neighbours,” said Hanan Mohammed, 36, who is displaced from her home in Jabalia.
“I can’t wait for a ceasefire to be announced and for this endless bloodshed and death to stop… there is nothing left but destruction.”
After two years of war, 72 percent of the Israeli public said they were dissatisfied with the government’s handling of the war, according to a recent survey by the Institute for National Security Studies.
– Herculean task –
Israel has expanded its military reach over the course of the war, striking targets in five countries in the region, including Iran, and killing several senior Hamas figures and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
A UN probe last month accused Israel of genocide in Gaza while rights groups have accused Hamas of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during the October 7 attack. Both sides reject the allegations.
In Egypt’s resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh, mediators were shuttling between Israeli and Hamas delegations under tight security.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty told reporters in Cairo, negotiations were underway for a “first phase” of the agreement, adding the discussions were focused on creating “the climate on the ground to complete the step of releasing the hostages”.
Trump has urged negotiators to “move fast” to end the war in Gaza, where Israeli strikes continued on Monday.
On Tuesday, the Israeli army said it detected a projectile fired from Gaza, with no injuries reported.
Trump told Newsmax TV that “I think we’re very, very close to having a deal… I think there’s a lot of goodwill being shown now. It’s pretty amazing actually”.
Although both sides have welcomed Trump’s proposal, reaching an agreement on its details is expected to be a Herculean task.
Two truces earlier in the war enabled the release of dozens of hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, though they did not envisage a more permanent ceasefire or the disarmament of Hamas.
Israeli military chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir has warned that if these negotiations fail, the military will “return to fighting” in Gaza.
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© Agence France-Presse
