October 7 attacks: Remembering those who died at Nova festival

Nine minutes past six in the morning, but the temperature was well into the 20s Celsius down near the coast in Israel. Just a few miles from the border with Gaza, at the site of the Nova Music Festival, which was attacked by Hamas on 7 October last year, there are posters. Memorials to each of the 250 or more hostages taken away into Gaza, some of them dead, some of them still there. The families arrived for this ceremony, mingling around, some of them gave interviews. Others simply clutched each other. Groups of three or four families hugged. A lot of tears, as would be expected. Helicopters from the Israeli military flew overhead, occasionally what sounded like mortar or small artillery fire fired over our heads east into Gaza.

There were prayers, there was music, and then a minute of silence when the violence first erupted here, exactly a year ago, at 6.29.

But it was punctuated by the piercing screams of a grief-stricken woman, one of many who gathered amongst the memorials to the 1,200 people who were killed at the site where a music festival was going on and at the nearby kibbutzim and villages which were also attacked.

Jeff, from Philadelphia, lost his son-in-law. He now lives in Israel, and he said it’s a commemoration for something which still continues. He said, like many here, that he wants peace, but feels that the destiny for him and for Israel is to live in a perpetual state of war and he sees no end to that.

Natalie, who lost her brother, said there is no way out for her, because his death will always be with her. She carries that for the rest of her life.

The president of Israel was there as well, not giving interviews at first, but prioritised talking to the relatives of those who lost loved ones. So many came that the initial ceremony was put back 10 or 15 minutes because people were still travelling on the road. All the while, shells and artillery going out over our heads from the west, over this music festival site, east into Gaza. It is a commemoration, but it is a commemoration for something which absolutely continues, which is of course the war.

It is the little incidental details which somehow capture your attention.

Ben, who was working on the beach in Tel Aviv up the coast, was with his mates, had one too many the night before, woke up in the morning and thought, ‘You know what, I’m not feeling up to going to the Nova Music Festival.’ So he didn’t go. His brother did, and managed to run away and escape the attackers with a group of friends. But another one of their friends was killed. So Ben and his friend Leo came down from Tel Aviv very early in the morning to pay their respects.

Then there’s Noa, who lost her brother here. Some months after, officials returned his mobile phone and on it she found one of the songs that he was writing. He was a musician, just 23 when he was killed. She’s managed to get his phone and play that song.

So everybody brought, as you would imagine, their own personal recollections. memories and memorabilia to this site.