Hamas Marks October 7th Anniversary By Firing Rockets at Tel Aviv

In an apparent attempt to let the world know they are still relevant, Hamas fired a barrage of rockets into southern Israel and Tel Aviv Monday morning on the first anniversary of the massacre the organization committed against Israelis on October 7th, 2023. The IDF said it had stopped a much larger barrage by targeting known launch sites with airstrikes, but several rockets landed in Israel, causing some damage and wounding two people.

It was the heaviest barrage of fire from the Gaza Strip in months, and it comes even as at least 100 Israelis who were kidnapped into Gaza on October 7th 2023 are still being held hostage in the Strip, although it's unclear how many of that number are still alive. Hamas accompanied the barrage with a statement celebrating what they characterized as their successful operation to target IDF soldiers and "settlers" in the Gaza border communities.

Israeli commemorations for the October 7th massacre, including official ceremonies and unofficial ones, began at 6:29 AM, the exact time the rocket barrage began that gave cover for the border fence to be breached one year ago today.

Many of the commemorations were held in Gaza border communities which bore the brunt of the attacks, but smaller and often private commemorations were held in dozens of other communities and in schools all over the country.

At the Knesset and most official buildings, flags were lowered to half-staff at 6:29 AM, but there was no sirens to mark the occasion as there are on Holocaust Memorial Day and Remembrance Day because there is still an active shooting war and such sirens might cause panic and/or confusion.

The IDF, for it's part, marked the anniversary by releasing some statistics about its operations in the Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria and Lebanon over the past year.

According to the report, approximately 17,000 Hamas operatives and members of other terror groups have been eliminated in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war. This is in addition to the approximately 1,000 who were eliminated in battles with security forces inside Israel on and immediately after October 7th. These neutralized terrorists include almost all those in leadership positions of Hamas military formations and the political echelon that was in place when they started this war.

Approximately 4,700 tunnel shafts have been found and demolished in the Gaza Strip. Several tunnels have already been found, cleared and demolished in southern Lebanon as well.

On that front, the IDF report said 800 members of Hezbollah have been eliminated, including 90 members of the organizations leadership ranks, including its Supreme Leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah.

Since October 7th 2023, over 26,000 rockets, missiles, and drones have been fired at Israel from multiple fronts including Gaza, southern Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Iran itself. The report said this does not include the hundreds of rockets fired at Israel which landed inside the Gaza Strip or Lebanon.

Israel's military and security services have lost 728 killed in action since October 7th, the latest being a Border Police officer killed by a terrorist shooting attack in Beersheba on Sunday. Another 4,576 uniformed security personnel have been wounded, and 56 others were killed in friendly fire incidents or other war-related accidents.

More than 5,250 terrorist suspects have been arrested in Judea and Samaria since the war began, while 690 armed individuals have been killed in exchanges of fire with IDF troops and other security forces.