Two Years On: Memory, Mourning and a Fragile Push for Peace
On a cool autumn morning, families drift toward the scorched stretch of Israel’s southern desert where the Nova music festival once pulsed with light and laughter. Two years to the day after militants swept across the Gaza fence on 7 October 2023, that same ground is now a place of pilgrimage — quiet, raw, and ringed with makeshift memorials.
“It was a very difficult and enormous incident that happened here,” says Elad Gancz, a teacher who was among those who came back to the site to stand beneath the skeleton of a stage and light a candle. “But we want to live — and despite everything, continue with our lives, remembering those who were here and, unfortunately, are no longer with us.”
The date has become an annual wound and a rallying cry. On that day in 2023, militants breached the Gaza-Israel border and attacked southern communities and a desert festival with rockets, gunfire and grenades — the deadliest day in Israel’s history. Official tallies cited by international agencies put the Israeli death toll at 1,219, mostly civilians. Militants carried roughly 251 hostages into Gaza; Israeli authorities say 47 remain in captivity today, and that 25 of them are confirmed dead.
Scenes of Remembrance
Across Israel, memorials and private vigils mark the anniversary. Hostages Square in Tel Aviv — a site of weekly protests and anguished pleas — will again host a ceremony; families and friends of the murdered and kidnapped gather there like a second pulse of the nation. A state-organised commemoration is scheduled for 16 October, a formal bookend to raw, public remembrance.
On the other side of the border, Gaza is marked less by organized ceremonies than by the ceaseless, grinding work of survival. Buildings lie flattened; hospitals and schools reduced to rubble; water systems and sanitation largely destroyed. The Hamas-run health ministry reports at least 67,160 people killed in Gaza since the conflict intensified — a figure United Nations investigators have described as credible. Those numbers do not distinguish combatants from civilians, but aid agencies say more than half of the dead are women and children.
“We have lost everything in this war — our homes, family members, friends, neighbours,” says Hanan Mohammed, 36, displaced from Jabalia. “I can’t wait for a ceasefire to be announced and for this endless bloodshed and death to stop… there is nothing left but destruction.”
Talks, Tension and the Tightrope of Diplomacy
As the anniversary presses on, another, quieter drama is unfolding in the sun-blanched diplomacy rooms of Sharm el-Sheikh. Indirect talks between Hamas and Israeli representatives, mediated by regional and international actors, are back on the table. The discussions are framed around a 20-point plan proposed publicly by Donald Trump, the polarizing American political figure, which calls for a ceasefire tied to the release of hostages and eventual disarmament of militant groups in Gaza.
Negotiators are operating under intense secrecy — mediators shuttle between rooms, words are filtered through interpreters and intelligence channels. Egyptian officials, long-standing intermediaries in these kinds of talks, say the aim is to create the conditions for a hostage-for-prisoner exchange and an initial ceasefire. Al-Qahera News reported that the talks are focused on “preparing ground conditions” for such swaps.
“There is a window,” says an Egyptian mediator who asked not to be named. “But windows close fast when the units on the ground are still firing. This is political patience versus military impatience.”
That tension is real and immediate. Israeli military leaders have repeatedly warned that without a political deal, operations could resume with full force. Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, chief of Israel’s military, has stated bluntly: if negotiations fail, the army will “return to fighting” in Gaza.
What’s at Stake — and What the Numbers Say
The human toll is matched by broader social and political strain. A survey by the Institute for National Security Studies found that 72% of the Israeli public are dissatisfied with the government’s handling of the war — an index of political fatigue that has ripples in domestic policy and electoral debate.
Meanwhile, humanitarian indicators in Gaza are dire: hundreds of thousands are internally displaced, sheltering in overcrowded camps and open areas with limited access to food, clean water, sanitation, and medical care. The World Food Programme and UN agencies warn of acute malnutrition in children and the spread of disease in areas where sewage and potable water systems have collapsed.
These are not abstract statistics; they are the texture of daily life. A primary school teacher in Khan Younis described classes on a tarpaulin spread over a ruined playground. “We teach numbers and letters by counting broken bricks,” she said. “The children ask why the sky is not as blue as before.” For many Gazans, simple acts of childhood are now lessons in endurance.
Voices from Both Sides
Among Israelis there is grief, anger, and an insistence on security. “We must never forget October 7,” says Miriam Katz, a Tel Aviv nurse who lost a cousin in the Nova attack. “But remember does not have to mean revenge alone. We want our hostages home, and we want a safe life for our children.”
In Gaza, the language is different but the desperation is the same. “There is nothing left to bury,” a 50-year-old man in Rafah told a visiting aid worker, tears catching on the dust. “Only ashes. We ask for food, for calm, for the right to be alive.”
Humanitarian workers warn that even a negotiated exchange will not heal structural wounds. “Hostage releases are critical, of course,” says Dr. Leila Haddad, a public health specialist who has worked in conflict zones across the region. “But without a comprehensive plan to restore services, livelihoods, and dignity, any ceasefire will be temporary. The infrastructure of society must be rebuilt. That requires long-term international commitment.”
Questions for the World
As you read this, ask yourself: what does justice look like here? Is it punishment, reconciliation, or both? Can a solution be imposed from outside, or must it be built through local ownership? These are messy, moral questions; there are no clean answers.
Yet the anniversary is forcing a reckoning. The events of 7 October serve as a grim reminder of how quickly violence can shatter lives, and how difficult it is to rebuild trust. The region’s political map has been reshaped by two years of war, by shifting alliances and new military incursions, and by international scrutiny that has accused both sides of grave violations — accusations each side rejects.
Paths Forward — Tentative and Uneven
For negotiators, the path forward is a tightrope. Any agreement will have to thread together the immediate demands of hostage release and ceasefire with longer-term arrangements for de-escalation, reconstruction, and governance. International actors will need to balance pressure with incentives; humanitarian agencies will need access and funds; communities will need trauma care and livelihoods.
- Immediate priorities: cessation of hostilities, safe release of remaining hostages, and unimpeded humanitarian access.
- Medium-term: phased reconstruction, restoration of basic services, and mechanisms for prisoner exchanges and accountability.
- Long-term: a negotiated political framework that addresses rights, security, and governance for Palestinians and Israelis alike.
No plan will be flawless. But each missed opportunity tightens the cycle of grief.
Two years after a day that etched itself into the collective memory of an entire region, the question that hangs in the desert air is simple and human: will we choose a path that leads to more funerals, or one that, painfully and imperfectly, begins to stitch wounds back together?
For the families at Hostages Square and the displaced in Jabalia alike, words are no substitute for safety, food, shelter, and the safe return of loved ones. Negotiators in Sharm el-Sheikh might be fashioning an agreement in secrecy today — but in the open, grief waits, candles flicker, and the desperate hope is universal: that the next anniversary will not look like this.
