Shalom all,
There are days in a nation’s history that divide time into “before and after”. For Israel, October 7, 2023, is one of them. Before that morning, families went to sleep believing the the border would hold, that the army would protect them and that the warning systems, intelligence services and political leadership entrusted with their safety would do what they were created to do. By the end of the day, homes had become crime scenes, peaceful communities had become places of brutal slaughter, families had been torn apart, and hundreds of people had been carried into captivity in Gaza. The sounds of music festivals and expectation of a holiday Sabbath morning were replaced by gunfire, desperate telephone calls, and the unbearable silence that follows the loss of someone who will never come home.
On October 7, 2026, Israel marked the third anniversary of that catastrophe. The calendar has moved forward. The grief has not. And the question confronting the country is no longer simply how to remember that terrible, Black Shabbat, but how to ensure that its dead, its wounded, its hostages, and its shattered communities will not have suffered in vain.
A nation lowers its flag – and confronts its conscience
The remembrance was not confined to a single ceremony or a single moment of silence. On October 5, the official national memorial observance began according to the Hebrew calendar, with President Isaac Herzog lowering the Israeli flag to half-mast at his residence. State ceremonies at Mount Herzl honored those murdered in the October 7 attack and those who fell in the war that followed. On October 7 itself, municipalities, survivors, bereaved families and communities across the country gathered again, many at 6:29 a.m. – the time associated with the beginning of the assault. At the Nova music festival site, relatives embraced and wept where their loved ones had been killed. Across Israel, flags at halfmast, memorial gatherings, photographs of the dead and moments of silence gave visible expression to a sorrow that cannot be contained by a calendar.
A flag lowered to half-mast is a simple gesture, but its meaning is profound. The flag that ordinarily rises proudly above government offices, military installations and public buildings descends in recognition that the country has suffered a wound. It says that the dead are not forgotten that the wounded are not invisible and that the suffering of individual families belongs to the national story.
Yet remembrance must mean more than lowering flags and delivering speeches. It must also mean listening to the bereaved when their questions are uncomfortable, honoring the survivors whose lives remain divided into before and after, and acknowledging the failures that left Israeli citizens exposed to an attack of devastating proportions.
There is something especially painful about remembering October 7 three years later. The attack was not merely a military defeat or a tragic security incident. It shattered a fundamental promise of the modern State of Israel, that Jewish sovereignty would mean that Jews would no longer be helpless in the face of organized violence and terrorism directed against them. The country possessed an army, intelligence agencies, sophisticated surveillance systems, and formidable technological capabilities. Yet, on that black morning, the people who depended on those institutions were left waiting for help that came too late.
The lowering of the flag must, therefore, be accompanied by a willingness to examine what happened. Otherwise, remembrance risks becoming a ritual that comforts the living without protecting those who will come after them.
The failures that cannot be buried with the dead.
The tragedy of October 7 was made more devastating by the contrast between Israel’s apparent preparedness and the reality of its vulnerability. Hamas-led attackers breached the Gaza border, overwhelmed military positions, entered residential communities, attacked, raped and dismembered civilians at home and at a music festival and abducted men, women, children and older people into Gaza. Approximately 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage. The scale and speed of the assault exposed a profound failure of national defense.
The questions that followed were unavoidable. Why were claimed intelligence warnings not translated into effective defensive measures? Why was the threat underestimated? Why were communities near the border left so vulnerable? Why did communications and the military response fail in so many places? Why did residents and local security teams sometimes have to defend themselves for hours while waiting for assistance from the Israeli military? And more.
These are not questions asked merely to assign blame. They go to the heart of the relationship between a government and its citizens. When a state asks young men and women to serve in uniform, when families pay taxes and accept the burdens of national service, and when citizens settle their lives in communities exposed to danger, they are entitled to expect that the institutions responsible for their protection will take foreseeable threats seriously.
Three years later, the demand for accountability remains inseparable from the demand for remembrance. The absence of a fully independent, comprehensive public inquiry has continued to fuel criticism of the political leadership and the security establishment. Such an inquiry should establish the chain of decisions, examine the intelligence and operational failures, identify institutional weaknesses, and recommend changes that can be tested and implemented.
Accountability must not be confused with the search for a convenient scapegoat. Responsibility may extend across governments, intelligence assessments, military planning, operational command, and long-standing strategic assumptions about Hamas. The purpose of a serious investigation is not to protect one institution by sacrificing another, nor to satisfy one political faction at the expense of another. It is to establish the truth.
Nor should the demand for accountability diminish the courage of those who fought. Soldiers, police officers, local defenders, medical teams, emergency responders, and ordinary citizens acted under extraordinary conditions. Some paid with their lives while attempting to rescue people they had never met. Their courage deserves to be remembered without being used as a reason to avoid examining the failure that made their sacrifice necessary. A nation can honor its heroes and question its leaders at the same time. Indeed, genuine respect for those who died demands that the country learn why they were left exposed to danger.
The human cost: numbers that represent entire worlds
Numbers are necessary for understanding the scale of a national catastrophe, but they can also conceal the individual lives behind them. Approximately 1,200 people were killed in the October 7 assault. Among the dead were civilians, soldiers, police officers, foreign nationals, young people attending a music festival, parents protecting children, and other people who had believed their homes would remain a place of safety. The 251 hostages represented another form of suffering: families forced to endure uncertainly, separation, fear and the possibility that those taken from them might never return.
The Israeli National Insurance Institute’s figures published for the third anniversary provide another measure of the devastation. By October 2026, it reported 1,029 civilian victims murdered in terrorist attacks since October 7, excluding security personnel and local emergency-response teams, and 87,425 additional victims of hostile actions recognized in its records. Of the latter, thousands have sought recognition for disability, including psychological injury. These categories cover the broader period of the conflict and should not be mistaken for a count of people physically wounded on October 7 alone.
The military toll is equally sobering. The Israel Defense Forces reported 970 personnel killed in operational circumstances over the three years of war, a figure covering the broader period and not just the original attack. The IDF also reported that more than 70 percent of soldiers wounded in the war had returned to service. That figure is a measure of both recovery and resilience, but it does not erase the pain of those whose injuries have permanently altered their lives.
Behind every number is a human story. A child grows up without a parent. A parent visits a grave instead of waiting for a familiar voice on the telephone. A survivor returns to a home that no longer feels safe. A soldier who has recovered physically may still wake at night to the memory of a battlefield. A family may celebrate a birthday while feeling the absence of someone who should have been there.
Some wounds are visible. Others remain hidden behind a composed face, a return to work, or an attempt to resume ordinary life. The public ceremony ends, the flags rise again and the cameras move elsewhere. But grief does not follow the news cycle. For many Israelis, October 7 is not one day remembrance once a year. It is a daily presence.
The return of the hostages, living and dead, marked an important change in the country’s collective mourning. By the third anniversary, all the hostages had been returned, according to reporting at the time. Yet the return of a loved one does not automatically restore the life that existed before the abduction. Survivors must rebuild their physical health, their trust, their relationships, and their sense of security. Families who received back bodies of murdered loved ones must learn to live with a loss that no national ceremony can reverse. Remembering the dead requires more than counting them. It requires refusing to let their names become abstractions.
Gaza’s toll – and the importance of getting truthful information
Any honest remembrance of October 7 must also confront the human cost of the war that followed. Israel’s military campaign against Hamas brought immense destruction to Gaza, displaced much of its population and left civilians facing prolonged deprivation and the loss of homes, family members, and essential services. Recognizing this suffering does not diminish the crimes committed against Israelis on October 7. Nor does remembering October 7 require pretending that the consequences of the war have been confined to Israel.
The question of casualties in Gaza has become central to international debate. Figures published by the Gaza Ministry of Health, which operates under the Hamas-controlled government, have been cited extensively by international organizations and new agencies. The main problem with those figures is that they are not independently verifiable and they also do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
It is important to be precise about what these numbers do – and do not – establish. Because the figures are issued by an authority operating under Hamas rule, and because the conditions of war make independent access, identification and verification exceptionally difficult, they cannot be treated as a comprehensive, independently audited accounting of every death and injury. Questions about the completeness of records, the identification of individuals, the distinction between combatants and civilians, all complicate the task of establishing an exact toll. A government, a military, a journalist, or an advocate should not present a contested figure as though it were a fully verifiable fact. The responsible approach is to identify the source, explain its limitations, distinguish confirmed information from estimates and avoid claiming certainty where certainty is unavailable.
For Israel, the challenge is to ensure that its account of October 7 remains anchored in documented facts, testimony, evidence and the identities of the victims. The massacre does not need exaggeration to be horrifying. Its reality is established by the people murdered, the families shattered, the hostages taken and the evidence of what happened. The truth is powerful enough without embellishment. Whether the factual evidence is believed by other countries, organizations and individuals in an entirely different matter.
What did Israel achieve through the war?
Three years after October 7, it is legitimate to ask what Israel achieved through its decision to wage war against Hamas. This question should neither be avoided out of respect for the dead nor answered with an uncritical declaration of victory.
The war was launched in response to an unprecedent attack, with objectives that included dismantling Hamas’s military capabilities, preventing it from repeating an assault on the scale of October 7, recovering the hostages, and restoring security to Israel’s southern communities. These objectives must be assessed individually, rather than treated as though progress toward one necessarily establishes success in all the others.
There have been significant military consequences for Hamas. The IDF reported that approximately tens of thousands of targets in Gaza had been struck during the broader war, as part of approximately 100,000 targets struck across several fronts. Israel also reported eliminating much of the senior command structure of Hamas and other hostile organizations. These figures are official Israeli military claims, and the number of targets struck is not, on its own, proof that every strategic objective has been achieved. Nevertheless, the military campaign imposed substantial damage to Hamas’s military organization and leadership.
The return of the hostages was another major outcome. Their release and the return of the bodies of those who were murdered in captivity brought an end to the ordeal of families who had spent months or years waiting for news. It would be impossible to calculate the emotional significance of a hostage returning home, embracing a parent, meeting a child, or finally being laid to rest in Israel. Yet it is equally important to acknowledge the enormous time, resources, military risks and public pressure involved in securing their return.
The war also changed Israel’s security calculations beyond Gaza. Israel confronted Hezbollah and other armed groups, faced attacks from Iran and its regional proxies and undertook military operations across multiple fronts. These developments demonstrated both the scale of the threat Israel perceived and the wider regional consequences of the conflict. They also came at a considerable cost, in military casualties, economic disruption, international criticism, and the continuing burden on IDF reservists and their families.
There are further gains that are less easily measured. Israeli society demonstrated extraordinary capacity for mobilization. Volunteers supported evacuated families, communities organized emergency assistance, medical teams treated the wounded, and citizens from different backgrounds stepped forward to help people they did not know. Reservists left jobs and families to serve. Civilian organizations provided food, shelter, equipment, psychological assistance, and practical support. In many places, the response of ordinary Israelis filled gaps left by institutions that were struggling to cope with the scale of the disaster.
This solidarity is not a substitute for effective government, but it is one of the most important facts about Israel’s response to October 7. The failure of the state to protect so many citizens did not extinguish the willingness of citizens to protect one another.
The country also gained a painful clarity about the dangers of complacency. Technological superiority cannot replace sound intelligence analysis. Border barriers cannot substitute for operational readiness. Military strength cannot compensate for a strategic doctrine that underestimates an adversary’s intentions. And no state can assume that yesterday’s deterrence will necessarily prevent tomorrow’s attack. These are lessons worth retaining, provided they lead to concrete reforms.
But, military achievements must be measured against the original objectives. Have Israel’s communities been made safer for the long term? Can Hamas be prevented from rebuilding its military organization? Is there an enforceable security arrangement that will protect Israel without committing it to indefinite warfare? Can displaced families return home with confidence? And can the country recover a sense of security without sacrificing the democratic accountability that distinguishes it from the organizations threatening it?
These questions remain more important than a simple declaration of victory or defeat. The positive results of the war are real in areas where they can be demonstrated: the degradation of Hamas’s military leadership and infrastructure, the return of the hostages, the mobilization of Israeli society, and a renewed understanding of the requirements of national defense. But these achievements must not be confused with proof that every objective has been fulfilled, or that the human and strategic costs were unavoidable.
A nation honors its soldiers not by claiming that every sacrifice was necessary, but by ensuring that the sacrifices made contribute to a safer future.
Remembrance must unite a divided country
October 7 has also exposed deep divisions within Israel over political leadership, responsibility, military strategy, the conduct of the war, and the future of Gaza. Bereaved families and survivors do not all share the same political opinions. Some demand an immediate accounting of the failures; others emphasize the need to maintain military pressure against Hamas. Some focus on the responsibilities of the government, while others fear that political disputes will weaken the country in the face of continuing threats.
These disagreements should not be treated as a betrayal of the dead. In a democracy, asking difficult questions is not a rejection of national solidarity. It is part of the process through which a nation determines what its obligations to its citizens mean.
The danger lies in allowing political allegiance to determine which suffering is acknowledged and which suffering is ignored. No party owns the memory of October 7. No government can claim exclusive authority to speak for every bereaved family. And no criticism of political leadership should be interpreted as a rejection of Israel’s right and obligation to protect its citizens.
The national flag belongs to all Israelis. Its descent to half-mast should, therefore, be a moment when political differences are placed in perspective – not erased, but subordinated to a shared recognition of loss and responsibility. The dead were not divided into political camps when they were brutally murdered. The wounded did not choose their injuries according to party affiliation. The families waiting for loved ones to return did not experience their anguish according to ideological categories. Their suffering belongs to the entire nation.
This is why an independent investigation into the failures surrounding October 7 is so important. The country needs a factual record that can withstand political pressure and the passage of time. It needs recommendations that address intelligence, military readiness, civilian protection, emergency communications, and the relationship between political decision-making and professional security assessment. It needs to know what went wrong, who was responsible for which decisions, and how the system must change. And it needs to demonstrate that the findings will have consequences.
Remembrance without accountability risks becoming a national ceremony repeated while the underlying weaknesses remain. Accountability without remembrance risks becoming a technical exercise that loses sight of the human beings whose lives were destroyed. Israel needs both.
Three years later: the meaning of hope
Perhaps the most moving aspect of October 7 is not simply the memory of what was lost, but the persistence of life in the face of that loss. Children have grown older without parents who should have watched them grow. Parents have learned to speak about children who will never return. Survivors have attempted to rebuild lives interrupted by terror and captivity. Communities have worked to restore homes, schools, businesses and the ordinary rhythms of daily existence.
At the Nova festival site, the memory of those killed remains inseparable from the music, the friendships, and the young lives that were cut short. In the communities near Gaza, the familiar landscape carries memories of people who once lived ordinary lives there. For the families of fallen soldiers, every national anniversary is another reminder that the person they lost is absent from the future they had imaged. For the wounded, they face a different, ongoing war. And yet Israel continues.
People return to work. Children go to school. Families gather around Shabbat tables. Soldiers come home. Volunteers continue their work. New life begins even in families whose lives were forever changed by captivity and loss. These ordinary acts are not evidence that the country has forgotten. They are evidence that terror has not succeeded in extinguishing the desire to live. Hope, however, must not be confused with a demand that people move on before they are ready. Survivors should not be expected to turn their suffering into an inspiring story for the convenience of others. Bereaved families should not be pressured to find meaning in a loss that may always remain incomprehensible. The wounded should not have to demonstrate resilience to deserve support. A humane nation makes room for grief that has no timetable.
It also makes room for the difficult work of rebuilding trust. Citizens must be able to trust that their leaders will tell them the truth, that the military will learn from its failures, that emergency services will be prepared and that communities near the border will not again be left to face an overwhelming assault without adequate protection.
The promise of October 7 remembrance is not that Israel will never again experience danger. No responsible leader can make that promise. The promise must be that the country will confront danger with greater preparedness, greater honesty, and a deeper commitment to the lives it is charged with protecting.
The flag must rise again
On October 7, Israel remembered the catastrophe that had transformed its national consciousness. The lowering of flags, the ceremonies, the photographs, the testimonies and the tears brought the country back to a morning that many would give anything to erase. But remembrance cannot end when the ceremonies conclude. The 1,200 people murdered in the attack cannot be brought back. The years stolen from the hostages cannot be restored. The physical and psychological wounds of tens of thousands of Israelis cannot be wished away.
What remains within Israel’s power is what it chooses to do with the memory. It can demand a serious accounting of the failures that preceded the attack. It can strengthen its defenses without surrendering the principles that give its society meaning. It can support the wounded and bereaved long after public attention has moved elsewhere. It can assess the achievements of the war honestly, recognizing both the damage inflicted on Hamas and the costs that Israel itself has borne. And it can insist that the truth be established through evidence, rather than political convenience.
The greatest danger now is not that Israel will forget the date. The country is unlikely ever to forget October 7. The danger is that the memory will become so familiar that it loses its power to demand change – that ceremonies will replace answers, slogans will replace analysis, and the sacrifices of the dead and wounded will be invoked without fulfilling the obligations they place upon the living.
The flag must rise again. It must rise above a country that has learned, that has mourned, and that has taken responsibility for its future. It must rise over communities where children can sleep without fear, over homes to which displaced families can return, and over a society in which those who failed in their duties are held accountable and those who suffered are not abandoned. And, to borrow a line from George M. Cohan’s 1906 hit song, You’re a Grand Old Flag: “forever in peace may you wave”.
And when Israel gathers again to remember October 7, the measure of its progress should not be in the number of speeches delivered or the solemnity of the ceremonies. It should be whether the country has become better able to protect its people, whether its institutions have earned back public trust, and whether the lives lost on that terrible Shabbat morning have helped to build a future in which such a catastrophe will be far from ever being able to happen again.
Three years have passed. The dead remain dead and the grief remains real. But the obligation of the living remains just as real: to remember without hatred consuming the future, to seek justice without abandoning truth, and to defend the country without forgetting the human value that makes defending it worthwhile.
May the memory of those murdered be blessed. May the wounded find healing, the bereaved find comfort, and the survivors find the strength and resolve to rebuild. And may the next generation inherit an Israel that remembers October 7, not only as the day that it suffered a severe national wound, but as the day it began the difficult work of becoming more vigilant, more accountable, and more determined to protect the lives entrusted to it.
May Israel remember its calling to bless, to be blessed and to be a blessing.
Marvin
© 10/10/2026
