Protests and unofficial memorial events were held throughout Israel on Thursday to mark 1,000 days since the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led assault on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and triggered wars that have killed hundreds more, with survivors and family members accusing the government of completely failing to take responsibility for the massacre.

Many events were themed around anger at the government for not acknowledging culpability for the failures that enabled thousands of terrorists to invade the south of the country, massacring roughly 1,200 people and abducting 251 people as hostages to the Gaza Strip. It was the worst terror attack the country has ever suffered and by far the biggest single-day slaughter of Jewish people since the Holocaust.

The October Council, a group of bereaved families, October 7 survivors, and some former hostages, organized some of the key events to mark the occasion.

The organization — which is sharply critical of the government’s failure to prevent the Hamas invasion and its refusal to form a state commission of inquiry — opened the day’s events at 6:29 a.m., the exact time that the attack began 1,000 days earlier, with a series of protests, including at numerous junctions.

The focus of many of the protests was the government’s refusal to set up a state committee of investigation, the country’s most powerful investigative body, to investigate the failures of Oct. 7. The government claims that due to its efforts to curb the powers of the judiciary, a state committee, appointed by the Supreme Court, will be biased against it. It has sought to form a government-appointed commission. Critics say the government fears it will be blamed for the disaster and is outraged that it seeks to appoint its own investigators.

At Re’im, in the south, families of victims held a memorial event at the scene of the Nova music festival massacre, where invading Hamas gunmen murdered 361 people amid acts of brutal sexual violence.

1000 ימים לטבח | יורם וסיגל יהודאי בטקס זכרון במקום בו נרצח בנם רון בפסטיבל הנובה ????חדר מלחמה • עדכונים שוטפים בווטסאפ ???? > https://t.co/1xUr5HrvV2 | ????️ לתמיכה בעיתונות עצמאית-ליברלית: https://t.co/e362Hp58gz pic.twitter.com/oPzU7h6F9F Advertisement if(typeof rgb_remove_toi_dfp_banner != "function" || !rgb_remove_toi_dfp_banner("#Article_Incontent1")){ window.tude = window.tude || { cmd: [] }; tude.cmd.push(function() { if(navigator.userAgent.indexOf("rgbmedia-app") > -1){ tude.setDeviceType("mobile"); } tude.refreshAdsViaDivMappings([ { divId: 'Article_Incontent1', baseDivId: 'Article_Incontent1', } ]); }); } — Dave Acting Now???????????????? (@DaveActNow) July 2, 2026

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Yoram Yehudai, father of Nova festival victim Ron Yehudai, said at a memorial held there: “Above all, it’s a thousand days without Ron, a thousand days of a rent heart. A thousand days for the bereaved families, a thousand days of torment inflicted on the people. A thousand days of not knowing what happened and how it happened.”

Nissan Calderon, a survivor of the massacre and brother of former hostage Ofer Calderon, accused the government of doing everything to make the country forget the day during a speech at a memorial site for observation soldiers near the Gaza border.

“But we are here, at this point, in front of the Gaza Strip, and we won’t let anyone forget October 7, the worst massacre to occur in this country,” he said, vowing that residents would rebuild the communities destroyed during the brutal assault.

“After three years, we returned to Kibbutz Sufa, as if nothing had happened. The enemy is still beyond the fence. Those responsible for the massacre have not taken responsibility.........

© The Times of Israel