October 7. An anniversary of pain that cannot be forgotten

Second Anniversary of Black Saturday.

The day when time in Israel stopped. When words lost their meaning, and the sound of the siren became the only thing connecting people to reality.

October 7 is not just a date. It is a gaping wound in the body of the country. A bleeding memory where every name is like a scar.

On that day, Hamas turned the morning into a nightmare.
Kibbutz Nir Oz, the festival in Reim — there were no boundaries of war. There were people. Music. Families. And in an instant, all of it disappeared under fire, under screams, under unimaginable brutality.

Of the 1,697 killed — hundreds were children, men, and women who were simply living. More than 19,000 were injured. 251 people were kidnapped. 143,000 were forced to leave their homes. These numbers are like a pulse of pain that has not subsided for two years.

Today, Israel lives this day again.
Not as a memory — as a breath, as an internal echo from which there is no escape.

A country accustomed to defense once failed to protect its own.

This is the real national trauma.
But it is inseparable from the personal: every lost life is someone’s child, someone’s love, someone’s story interrupted forever.

In these two years, the people of Israel have learned to cry and stand. Learned to wait.
Because pain is also a form of resistance.

Anger, Grief, and Faith

Today, all of Israel awaits the return of the hostages.
48 people remain captive, and only 20 of them are estimated to be alive. Their names are spoken like a prayer — quietly, but with hope:
Elkana Buchbut, Bar Kupershtein, Maxim Kharkin, Segev Kalphon, Eitan Mor, Alon Oel, Yosef Chaim Ohana, Avinatan Or, Rom Breslavsky, Evyatar David, Gai Gilboa-Dalal, Matan Angrest, Nimrod Cohen, Matan Tsangauker, Ziv Berman, Gali Berman, Eitan Horn, David and Ariel Kunio, Omri Miran, Bipin Joshi, Tamir Nimrodi.

Each name is an unfinished story.
Each day of waiting is like a new loss.

Hamas bears responsibility for every life stolen two years ago. And until the hostages return home, this day will not become the past.

Two Years of War: A Price Every Family Knows

1,152 military, police, and volunteer casualties.
42% of them were under 21 years old.
978 civilian casualties, including 62 children.
6,318 injured IDF soldiers — nearly a thousand severely.
80,000 affected by terrorist attacks and hostilities.
30,000 of them with invisible trauma.
1,973 parents lost children. 351 women lost husbands. 885 children lost parents.

These numbers are not statistics. They are a living list of pain that Israel carries inside, like a prayer.

A Year of Memory That Became a Year of Accountability

October 7 is not just a day of mourning. It is a day of anger, a day of questions that can no longer be postponed.
Why did this happen? Why did a state that built a security system for decades find itself defenseless against horror? Why are the hostages still not home?

Today, Israel demands answers. And demands change.
Because for every name, for every life, for every loss, there must be accountability.

Between Pain and Hope — Israel

Two years later, the country lives on the fault line between grief and faith.
Somewhere, the laughter of children born after the tragedy is heard. Somewhere, a mother still keeps a photo of a son she didn’t get to hug that day.
And above all this, a phrase that has become a common vow: never again.

Today is the day when Israel looks in the mirror again and sees not only pain but also strength.
Memory is not just mourning. It is a weapon that makes repetition impossible.

And let this day, October 7, remain in history not only as a day of darkness but as a day when Israel decided: there will never again be silence when its own perish.