Hamas’ multi-pronged attack on southern Israel on October 7 was unprecedented in scale, causing such panic and confusion that it was difficult to immediately grasp the details of what was happening.
Nearly a year later, the confirmed death toll, including hostages killed in captivity, now stands at 1,205.
Here’s a detailed timeline of the deadliest day in Israel’s history.
At 6:29 a.m., the Israeli military confirmed that thousands of rockets had been fired from the Gaza Strip towards areas on the Israeli border.
Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, said it had fired about 5,000 artillery shells in an attack dubbed “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” after the mosque, Islam’s third holiest site in Israel-annexed east Jerusalem.
Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system was activated but was quickly overwhelmed by the volume of attacks.
At the same time, Hamas fighters, who later said they numbered 1,200, broke through the border on motorbikes, pickup trucks and even motorized paragliders.
They used explosives and bulldozers to breach the fence separating Gaza from Israel and attack around 50 locations, including kibbutz communities, military bases and music festivals.
Extremists killed large numbers of festival-goers and went door-to-door in rural areas, shooting residents in their homes.
A UN report in March found there was “substantial reason to believe” that rape had taken place during the attack, and also found “clear and convincing information” that some of the hostages held that day had been raped.
By 8:30 a.m., militants had attacked six military bases: Erez on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, Nahal Oz across from Gaza City, two bases near the Beeri Kibbutz, one in La’im near central Gaza, and two in the south near the Egyptian border.
Military help was delayed, forcing residents of a kibbutz near Gaza to fight the attackers on their own for several hours.
They later said they hid in safe rooms as the gunmen tried to break down the door, or ran outside with whatever weapons they had and tried to fight off the attackers.
At least 370 people were killed in an hour-long militant rampage at the Nova music festival, which had attracted nearly 3,000 people to the fields and woods a few kilometres from central Gaza.
In Kibbutz Berri, one of the hardest-hit communities, the first Israeli reinforcements arrived to help “after 1:30 p.m.,” a military report later said.
Army forces arrived at 4:15 pm, organized a coordinated evacuation of the survivors, and regained control of the kibbutz.
The army said at about 6 p.m., both soldiers and civilians were captured by Hamas attackers and taken to Gaza.
On October 7, a total of 251 people were taken hostage in Israel, including 44 attendees of the Nova Festival and at least 74 attendees of the Nir Oz Kibbutz.
The army said some people, including soldiers, had already died and their bodies had been taken to Gaza.
Some hostages may have been killed by friendly fire, including in Kibbutz Be’eri, where witnesses told Israeli media that tanks fired into the home of 14 people being held by Hamas.
The order may have been an example of the “Hannibal Directive,” which Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported was applied at least three times that day.
This measure allows soldiers to use force to prevent capture.
At 11:34 a.m., Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a nearly unprecedented televised address on the Sabbath rest day, declared: “We are at war.”
In the afternoon, the military called up 360,000 reservists to bolster the army’s current strength of 170,000, including both compulsory and professional soldiers.
Israel immediately began a relentless bombardment of Gaza, the tiny Palestinian coastal territory that has been controlled by Hamas since 2007 and is home to 2.4 million people.
An AFP reporter reported that the first airstrikes occurred in the Gaza Strip at 10:39 am that day, and the area has since been devastated by relentless air strikes.
Israeli retaliatory military attacks have killed at least 41,431 people in the Gaza Strip since October 7, most of them civilians, according to data released by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip’s Health Ministry, a figure the United Nations has called credible.
On the evening of October 7, searches for any militants still present in Israel continued, with terrified civilians holed up in their homes and many streets deserted.
On October 10, the military announced it had recaptured all territory attacked by militants.
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