7 October: The beginning of history?
On Friday, 6 October 2023, many people living in Israel went to bed thinking that they would spend the next day celebrating the end of the Jewish festival of Sukkot.
Instead of alarm clocks, the sounds of air sirens filled the air as over 2 000 rockets were launched from Gaza into Israel at 06:30, waking residents living in Rafah and Khan Younis, Tel Aviv and Sderot, in the kibbutzim of southern Israel, in Beit Lahia and Deir al Balah.
The barrage of rockets continued for 20 minutes while Hamas fighters, working alongside five other Palestinian groups, used explosives and bulldozers to breach the wall that Israel had erected around the Gaza Strip. In the brutal assault that followed, 1 200 people were killed. Two hundred and fifty people were abducted by Hamas and taken into Gaza.
At 10:00, the IDF began conducting airstrikes on the Gaza Strip. On 8 October, Israel declared war. A day later, Israel ordered a "complete siege" of the Gaza Strip, cutting off water, electricity, food, and fuel from entering the territory. A few weeks later a ground incursion was launched. In one year, more than 41 700 Gazans, many of them women and children, have been killed, and two thirds of the buildings in the Gaza Strip have been damaged or destroyed.
7 October is the day the world changed. Few could have predicted the calamity it would unleash or the ensuing year of crisis.
For those in Israel and in Gaza, the human tragedy set off by that day has been immense and overwhelming. 7 October was the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust, while the death toll and the destruction of infrastructure in the Gaza Strip is unprecedented.
In this week's bumper edition of Friday Briefing, we ask if events on 7 October mark the beginning of history. Are we on the cusp of a regional war? Recent events which have seen an escalation in tensions in the Middle East following the Israeli strikes in Lebanon and Iran's response to a missile and drone attack seem to indicate we are.
We approached various writers to give their views on 7 October and the aftermath.
South African historian Milton Shain reflects on the unresolved Palestinian Question and how this is increasingly costly for the West. We also have a reflection from television anchor Benita Levin, who lives in Israel. She considers the kidnapping of Shiri Bibas along with her two children and the questions she has a year on from the attack. In-depth writer Muhammad Hussain also spoke to Nova music festival-goer Hila Fakliro about how she has tried to get her life back together.
Human rights activist Shuaib Munjira writes about the plight of Palestinians since 7 October and how any notions of Western values, international law and international diplomacy have been buried along with the more than 41 700 Palestinians killed in Gaza.
Muhammad Hussain also spoke to former Dirco minister Naledi Pandor about whether we are in the era of 'might is right'. Professor Anthoni van Nieuwkerk from the Thabo Mbeki African School of Public and International Affairs at UNISA also examines this issue, considering why the UN has not been able to bring peace to the region.
The SAJBD's Adam Charnas, News24's foreign editor Phillip de Wet and the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs Dr Dan Diker also contributed to this edition.
There seems to be no end in sight to this war. Instead, it seems to be spiralling into something bigger. We hope the submissions provide a bit more context to the situation we now find ourselves in.
Best,
Vanessa Banton
Opinions editor
Is 7 October the beginning of history?
7 October will not be forgotten. In all likelihood, its impact will weaken the peace camp and embolden the far-right. But pressure on the Israelis to resolve the conflict will mount, as it will on the Palestinians, who will add Gaza to the Nakba in their collective memory, writes Milton Shain.
Unseen struggles: Reflecting on the lives torn apart by terror
A year on, Israel is a nation grieving, recovering, volunteering and supporting thousands evacuated from their homes, honouring those killed defending the country and understanding the risks that are being taken in war. A war it did not want. A war it did not start. And a war that is far from over, writes Benita Levin.
Q&A with Nova festival survivor Hila Fakliro: 'I want peace. I don't think it can happen'
Hila Fakliro, 27, was a bartender at the Nova Festival in Israel on 7 October 2023 when Hamas attacked. Fakliro spoke to News24's Muhammad Hussain from India this week to reflect on how life has been a year since the traumatic events of that day.
7 October: A Palestinian watershed
The ICJ'S genocide case may take years to reach conclusion, Gaza will take decades to rebuild, but the confidence and consensus in international humanitarian law is destroyed forever. A new axis of counter-power to the Global North is the only hope for justice anywhere and everywhere, including Palestine, argues Shuaib Manjra.
Q&A with Naledi Pandor: 'Why are the US, Germany, UK supporting "terrible murder" of Palestinians?'
The new chair of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, Dr Naledi Pandor, assumed office this week. News24's Muhammad Hussain sat down with Pandor for this no-holds-barred Q&A, in which the former DIRCO minister reflected on the Gaza-Israel war a year on from 7 October and touched on related global security issues as regional escalation intensifies.
The war in Gaza: Why there will not be peace
The warmongers have incapacitated the UN and actively prevented it from solving violent conflicts. Its emasculation is visibly demonstrated by the endless 'emergency' meetings of its Security Council to address breaches of the peace, argues Anthoni van Nieuwkerk.
Israel is defending itself in an existential war
On 7 October last year, Hamas started a war purposefully. Hamas bears responsibility for the suffering it brought on Israel and on its own population, writes Adam Charnas.
Israel's year of war has made it less safe than ever
Israel is creating a reservoir of angry people as it tries to bomb its way to safety, writes Phillip de Wet.
Lessons Israel learned after the 7 October massacre
The 'apartheid' label against Israel is in no small part responsible for paving a pathway of dehumanisation and delegitimisation of the Jewish state, climaxing in the barbaric atrocities of 7 October, argues Dan Diker.
