On October 7, 2023, a series of coordinated armed incursions from the blockaded Gaza Strip into the Gaza envelope of southern Israel were carried out by Hamas and several other Palestinian militant groups. In response, Israel launched a major military operation in Gaza.
The attacks began during the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah with a barrage of at least 4,300 rockets launched into Israel and vehicle-transported and powered paraglider incursions into Israel. Hamas militants breached the Gaza–Israel barrier, attacking military bases and massacring civilians in 21 communities, including Be'eri, Kfar Aza, Nir Oz, Netiv Haasara, and Alumim. According to an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) report that revised the estimate on the number of attackers, 6,000 Gazans breached the border in 119 locations into Israel, including 3,800 from the elite Nukhba forces and 2,200 civilians and other militants. Additionally, the IDF report estimated 1,000 Gazans fired rockets from the Gaza Strip, bringing the total number of participants on Hamas's side to 7,000.
In total, at least 1,195 people were killed by the attacks: at least 828 civilians (including 36 children and 71 foreign nationals) and at least 367 members of the security forces. 364 civilians were killed while they were attending the Nova music festival and many more wounded. 251 Israeli and non-Israeli civilians and soldiers were taken as hostages to the Gaza Strip. Numerous sources have reported dozens of cases of rape and sexual assault. The IDF used the Hannibal Directive on that day, which may have led to at least 13 Israeli civilian deaths.
Hamas said its attack was in response to the continued Israeli occupation, the blockade of the Gaza Strip, the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements, rising Israeli settler violence, recent escalations and Israel's holding of Palestinian prisoners, and that it was in defense of the Palestinian people and their cause. Experts disagree on whether Hamas sought to induce the destruction of Israel, or to establish a Palestinian state with 1967 borders. The day was labelled the bloodiest in Israel's history and "the deadliest for Jews since the Holocaust" by many figures and media outlets in the West, including then-US president Joe Biden. Some have alleged that the attack was an act of genocide or a genocidal massacre against Israelis. The governments of 44 countries denounced the attack and described it as terrorism, while some Arab and Muslim-majority countries blamed Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories as the root cause of the attack.
Names
Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups codenamed the attacks Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, while in Israel they are referred to as Black Saturday or the Simchat Torah Massacre. Internationally and commonly in Israel, the attacks are called the October 7 attacks.
Background
Israeli occupation and blockade of the Gaza Strip
According to international humanitarian law scholars, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip has been subjected to some form of belligerent Israeli occupation since 1967.
The Gaza Strip—a coastal strip 28 miles long and 6 miles wide with small towns and refugee camps delineated by the Green Line of the 1949 Armistice Agreements—was constituted in the aftermath of the Nakba and the 1948 Palestine war, when it came under Egyptian administration (1949–67). In the 1967 Arab–Israeli War (Six-Day War), the Israeli military occupied the Gaza Strip (1967–2005), imposing restrictions on movement and goods into the territory since the early 1990s.
In 2005, Israel disengaged from the Gaza Strip by withdrawing its forces and dismantling and evacuating its 21 settlements there, though it redeployed and maintained troops on the borders outside of Gaza and took exclusive control of the airspace over Gaza and its territorial waters. Israel maintained restrictions and active control on the movement of people and goods in the Gaza Strip, with the stated aims of preventing the smuggling of weapons into Gaza and exerting economic pressure on Hamas. In the view of the majority of the relevant scholarship, the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, and many other international non-governmental humanitarian and legal organizations, Israel has continued to be regarded as an occupying power in the Gaza Strip, which has continued to be regarded as among the occupied Palestinian territories. The official Israeli view and certain pro-Israel scholars consider the Gaza Strip to be unoccupied.
Hamas
The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), is a Palestinian nationalist Islamist movement that formed in 1987. It is the largest Islamist movement in the Palestinian territories. They maintain an uncompromising stance on the "complete liberation of Palestine", often using political violence to achieve their goals. Hamas has issued contradictory statements concerning the acceptability of the 1967 borders. Hamas has been responsible for numerous suicide bombings and rocket attacks targeting Israeli civilians. Australia, Canada, the EU, Japan, New Zealand, and the UK have designated Hamas a "terrorist organisation". In 2010 it attempted to derail the peace talks between Israel and the PA. In 2017, it adopted a new charter, removing antisemitic language and shifting focus from Jews to Zionists. Scholars differ on Hamas's objectives, with some saying it seeks a Palestinian state within 1967 borders while others believe Hamas still seeks the destruction of Israel.
International warnings
Before the attack, Saudi Arabia warned Israel of an "explosion" as a result of the continued occupation. Egypt said it warned Israel days before the attack that "an explosion of the situation [was] coming, and very soon, and it would be big." Israel denied receiving such a warning, although Michael McCaul, Chairman of the US House Foreign Relations Committee, said that warnings were given three days before the attack. According to Haaretz, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was warned of a Hamas plot to attack Israel in a September 2023 phone call with UAE president Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The UAE had been told of the attack by an intermediary, who warned that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was plotting a "huge surprise". The UAE did not comment on the Haaretz report, although Netanyahu denied it and told his lawyers to sue the newspaper and the report's authors, Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval.
Throughout 2023, increased settler attacks displaced hundreds of Palestinians. In April, clashes occurred around the Al-Aqsa Mosque, a contested holy site in Jerusalem. In May, clashes occurred between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group.
Tensions between Israel and Hamas rose in September 2023, and The Washington Post wrote that the two were "on the brink of war". On September 13, five Palestinians were killed at the border. Israel said it found explosives hidden in a shipment and halted all exports from Gaza; Hamas denied Israel's claims. Reuters quoted Palestinians who said that the several-day ban affected thousands of families. In response to the ban, Hamas put its forces on high alert and conducted military exercises with other groups, including openly practicing storming Israeli settlements. Hamas also allowed Palestinians to resume protests at the Gaza–Israel barrier. On September 29, Qatar, the UN, and Egypt mediated an agreement between Israeli and Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip to reopen closed crossing points and deescalate tensions; the total number of Gazans with work permits in Israel stood at 17,000.
Operational planning
For two years, Hamas used hardwired phone lines within Gaza's tunnel network, nicknamed the "Gaza metro", to covertly communicate, evade Israeli intelligence, and plan Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
In the months preceding the attack, Hamas publicly released videos of its militants preparing to attack Israel. A video released in December 2022 showed Hamas training to take hostages, while another video showed Hamas practicing paragliding. On September 12, Hamas posted a video of its fighters training to blast through the border. After the attack, the IDF said that Hamas had extensively studied the military bases and communities near the border.
The Wall Street Journal has accused Iran of being behind the attack. U.S. officials and Iran have denied this.
According to a New York Times investigation, a memo dated August 24, 2022, and apparently written by Yahya Sinwar described a Hamas attack on Israel similar to October 7 attacks. It called for bulldozers to breach the Gaza-Israel fence and for multiple assault waves. It urged "Stomp on the heads of soldiers" and listed "opening fire on soldiers at point-blank range, slaughtering some of them with knives, blowing up tanks". It ordered entry into residential areas to set them on fire "with gasoline or diesel from a tanker", preparing "two or three operations" in which "an entire neighborhood, kibbutz, or something similar will be burned". It directed unit commanders to film and broadcast the acts to mobilize Palestinians in the West Bank, Arabs in Israel, and "our nation" to "join the revolution".
The IDF reportedly seized over 10,000 weapons following the attack. The arsenal included RPGs, mines, sniper rifles, drones, thermobaric rockets, and other advanced weapons. According to Israeli sources, documents and maps seized from Hamas militants indicated that Hamas intended a coordinated, month-long operation to invade and occupy Israeli towns, cities, and kibbutzim, including attacking Ashkelon by sea and reaching Kiryat Gat, 20 miles (32 km) into Israel. The scale of weapons, supplies, and plans indicated, according to Israel, that Hamas intended to inflict mass casualties on Israeli civilians and military forces over an extended period. Western and Middle Eastern security officials gathered evidence suggesting that Hamas intended to invade as far as the West Bank, had the initial attack been more successful.
Israeli intelligence failure
According to The New York Times, Israeli officials had obtained detailed attack plans more than a year before the attack. The document described operational plans and targets, including the size and location of Israeli forces, and raised questions in Israel about how Hamas learned these details. The document provided a plan that included a large-scale rocket assault before an invasion, drones to knock out the surveillance cameras and automated guns that Israel has stationed along the border, and gunmen invading Israel, including with paragliders. The Times reported, "Hamas followed the blueprint with shocking precision." According to The Times, the document was widely circulated among Israeli military and intelligence leadership, who largely dismissed the plan as beyond Hamas's capabilities, though it was unclear whether the political leadership was informed. In July 2023, a member of the Israeli signals intelligence unit alerted her superiors that Hamas was conducting preparations for the assault, saying, "I utterly refute that the scenario is imaginary". An Israeli colonel ignored her concerns.
The official investigation by Israel's domestic intelligence agency, Shin Bet, found that the agency failed to provide the warning that could have prevented the massacre. The head of Shin Bet convened a situation assessment in the early hours of October 7 to discuss the intelligence received from Gaza; in the end, only a low-level warning was issued, and a small team specialising in thwarting limited attacks was sent to the south. According to the report the counterintelligence service of Hamas had been highly effective in preventing the gathering of intelligence in Gaza.
According to the findings of the investigation, Shin Bet warned the Prime Minister that Hamas was not deterred and objected to the prevailing divide-and-rule policy of the Israeli government.
According to Haaretz, Shin Bet and IDF military commanders discussed a possible threat to the Nova music festival near kibbutz Re'im just hours before the attack, but the festival's organizers were not warned.
As revealed by a BBC investigation, surveillance reports suggested that Hamas was planning a significant operation against Israel, but senior IDF officers repeatedly ignored the warnings.
A Haaretz investigation found that incompetence in the IDF's higher ranks, including refusal to acknowledge Hamas's preparations for the attacks, was a major contributor to the severity of the October attacks. The IDF had reduced funding and manpower dedicated to observing Hamas, focusing primarily on rocket sites and ignoring Hamas training and troop movements, and the activities of the Hamas military leadership. Exercises in which Hamas attacks were simulated found the Gaza division's response lacking. Cultural conformity was fostered among officers and dissent discouraged. Senior officers often silenced subordinates to maintain their positions, contributing to a toxic atmosphere in which lower-ranking officers were apprehensive about questioning the decisions of their superiors - and tended to refrain from doing so.
The Israeli defense establishment had warned the Prime Minister that political upheavals related to the significant judicial overhauls had signaled to adversaries that the country was vulnerable, although that very apparatus had ignored its own detection of Hamas's "Walls of Jericho" mass-invasion plan a year prior to the event, as well as, the detection of border movements in the hours leading up to the invasion.
Attacks
At around 6:30 a.m. Israel Summer Time (UTC+3) on Saturday, October 7, 2023, Hamas announced the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. Al-Qassam Brigades commander Mohammed Deif gave a speech mentioning Israel's 16-year blockade of Gaza, Israeli incursions in West Bank cities, violence at Al-Aqsa mosque, Israeli settler violence with the army's support, the confiscation of property and demolition of homes, arbitrarily detaining Palestinians for years until "they wither from cancer and disease", Israel's neglect for international law, American-Western support, and international silence. He then described the operation, that they had drawn the line, and that it was to end "the last occupation on Earth". Shortly thereafter, Ismail Haniyeh made a similar announcement in a televised address.