Israel marked the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack with memorials and protests at more than 400 locations, a national moment of silence and events at the Nova festival site, with a national memorial expected in Tel Aviv attended by tens of thousands. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lit a memorial candle in the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem in memory of all the victims of the attack, spoke of the people’s unity and pledged to complete the mission and account for all the dead, amid criticism after a report that he had received a warning before the attack. Israel Hayom said no national sirens would be sounded on the third anniversary on its original Gregorian date or at this week’s events, because the government decided to mark the anniversary according to the Hebrew calendar on the 24th of Tishrei, two days after Simchat Torah, under a law formally approved in July.
On the military level, the Israeli army said its forces struck about 100,000 targets across the region during three years since the war that followed the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks, including about 65,000 targets in the Gaza Strip, about 28,000 in Lebanon and Syria, about 4,500 in Iran and about 80 in Yemen, without giving details on the nature of the targets or the damage, saying 970 Israeli soldiers were killed in service during this period. Israeli estimates showed that 2,347 Israelis have been killed since Oct. 7, 2023, including 1,318 military and security personnel, while the Defense Ministry’s rehabilitation department received about 30,000 wounded. According to the Institute for National Security Studies, thousands of rockets were launched from Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen and Syria, while the Bank of Israel estimated the cost of the war at about $114.68 billion until 2026. Data from the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs showed that fear in Israel of a similar attack to Oct. 7 from the West Bank rose from 62% in February 2025 to 77% in September 2026, while opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state remained high and stable between 64% and 68% among the general public and reached 75% among Jews.
Politically and security-wise, Shas leader Deri attacked the heads of the Change bloc during a visit to the headquarters of the Rescue Union at a memorial and honoring event for its volunteers, accusing them of favoring Hamas supporters instead of Haredim, saying some were trying for political reasons to exclude the many Haredi volunteers and distort their image. In Ashkelon, the investigation into the shooting incident is becoming more complex after the revelation that a government car assigned to Boaz Asayag, one of Netanyahu’s drivers, was near the scene, and his son was driving it at the time; a report by journalist Alon Hachmon in Maariv said police seized and examined the car and then released it, and the assessment strengthened that the son was not involved in the shooting itself, while suspicion turned to another person arrested later, and the court said the evidence against the son was “weak and circumstantial.” Also, Chaim Ben Aryeh, one of the bus drivers who evacuated surviving children from Kibbutz Be’eri on Oct. 7, committed suicide after saving dozens of lives but witnessing horrific scenes that broke his spirit, according to an Israeli news site.
On the economic and intellectual levels, Amir Makhoul, an expert on Israeli affairs, said that alongside its aggression on the Gaza Strip, Israel began military operations against Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, and that the Israeli economy recorded a noticeable return to growth of about 3.5% in 2025 after about 1% in 2024, with expectations of reaching 5.5% next year, stressing that the war with Iran was the most economically costly, and that the announced figure of 350 billion shekels relates in practice to the war as a whole and not to Gaza alone, with the United States bearing a large part of these costs. In an opinion article in Maariv, Meir Ouziel wrote that the ongoing war had not ended after three years since the Oct. 7 attack, and that the causes of the next surprise remain, criticizing the ignoring of warnings by female observers, the confiscation of a civilian communications device from Netivot that was eavesdropping on Hamas communications, the withdrawal of long weapons from local guard units, and the obstruction of the investigation as the High Court did not allow the state comptroller to investigate, and he argued that preventing the “next catastrophe” requires a radical change in the understanding of the political and security leaderships.