Israel’s government cabinet has asked Likud Transportation Minister Miri Regev to organize this year’s ceremonies to mark the one-year anniversary of the October 7 invasion of Israel.
But it’s not yet clear that the event will take place as planned.
Beginning next year and thereafter, the start of the war is to be marked according to the Hebrew calendar, on Tishrei 24 – two days after the Jewish date of the massacre – in accordance with a cabinet vote taken in March. The decision means the anniversary of the start of the war will not be marked on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah.
However, the Israeli Hostage Families Forum has announced it will boycott the state ceremonies, and a number of the affected Gaza Envelope communities have said they will do so as well.
“The Hostage Families Forum will join with border communities and towns on the Gaza border and south to mark the anniversary of the massacre, to demand the restoration of security, the return of the abductees, the restoration of the communities and the investigation of the failures that led to the terrible disaster on October 7, 2023,” the Forum said in its statement.
Instead, an alternate ceremony will be held in the Gaza border communities that suffered the attack.
As a result, the government is mulling the option of canceling this year’s ceremonies, according to a report Wednesday by Israel’s Channel 12 News.
It was Shabbat Simchat Torah when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists tortured, burned, raped and mutilated thousands, slaughtering 1,200 people and abducting 251 others into Gaza captivity.
Because Tishrei 24 falls this year on a Shabbat (October 26), however, the ceremonies for the “National Remembrance Day for the Disaster That Befell the State of Israel on October 7, and Swords of Iron War” are scheduled for the following day – Sunday, October 27.
If the ceremonies are held as planned, one will take place at 11 am to honor those killed in action in the war that is still going on. The second state ceremony, to honor the memory of the civilians murdered during the invasion of southern Israel, will take place at 1 pm the same day.
“We will conduct the ceremony with sensitivity and responsibility and express our memory, heroism and hope,” Regev said in accepting the assignment.
