October 7 attacks: A timeline of violence and misery

The day started out as just another Saturday. 

At the Nova music festival, young people danced with music thumping in the background, and hundreds of people milled about in their kibbutzims, cooking, cleaning, and spending time with their families. 

But their world was soon turned upside down, with the impact felt by millions of people in the region and around the world. 

The militant group Hamas launched a large-scale attack in which more than a thousand were killed, and 251 hostages were taken, according to Human Rights Watch, which described the actions by Hamas that day as war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Nations from across the world condemned the attacks by Hamas.

Shortly after the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with the Knesset [Israeli Parliament] announced that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) would retaliate to the attacks.

The IDF soon laid siege to the Gaza Strip, with the intensity of the response drawing criticism from the United Nations Security Council, which called for civilians in Gaza not to be collectively punished for atrocities committed by Hamas.

In the wake of the attacks, Netanyahu formed an emergency so-called ‘war cabinet’ with parties from across the ideological spectrum - in a show of unity by the traumatised country.

Immediately, Western nations justified Israel’s attacks on Gaza as an ‘act of self-defence’ while UN reports found that an alarming number of civilians were killed in the process.

On October 12, the Israeli government dropped leaflets from the air and sent millions of messages to evacuate the north of Gaza within 24 hours, despite the fact that most medical services were based in that area. 

Twenty days after Hamas launched its attack, the IDF began with a ground offensive, sending troops into the Gaza Strip for the first time since the attacks.

Soon after, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels based in Yemen started to attack commercial ships they believed to support the Israelis. The Houthis are not the only Iranian-backed proxy forces which attacked those they believe to be backers of Israel. 

Hezbollah, a group based in Lebanon, began firing rockets into Israel on October 8.

In November of that year, there was a brief respite when a ceasefire and hostage exchange was announced in which 100 Israeli hostages were exchanged for 240 Palestinian prisoners. 

But after only 7 days, the ceasefire collapsed.

The South African government then stepped into the fray when they logged a genocide case against the Israeli government in December of 2023. They alleged that Israel was committing acts of genocide in the Gaza Strip. Israel countered these claims by saying Hamas members were intentionally hiding in highly dense civilian areas and using “human shields”.

The International Court of Justice subsequently ordered that provisional measures be taken to ensure that civilians in Gaza were protected. 

By the end of February, the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said the death toll had passed 30,000 people, which they claim to be mostly women and children, as famine loomed.

The United Nations and Humanitarian aid organisations had, by this time, criticised the Israeli government for not allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza. The United States announced that it would build a temporary floating pier off Gaza to ease the delivery of aid.

Outrage followed days later when the humanitarian organisation World Central Kitchen’s convoy was mistakenly attacked by an Israeli airstrike, killing seven aid workers.

During the worsening crisis, world leaders warned about the conflict spreading to the wider region, fearing an all-out regional war.

Israel subsequently attacked an Iranian consulate in Syria that killed an Iranian military commander. In retaliation, Iran engaged militarily for the first time with Israel with a drone attack. Iran sent more than 300 drones to attack Israel, but they were largely shot down by the Israelis, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, and they were assisted by the United States and the United Kingdom.

As the war efforts in Gaza dragged on, casualties climbed rapidly, with hostages also dying in attempted rescue operations. 

At the end of July, Israel assassinated the political leader of Hamas while he was in Tehran, Iran, along with other leaders for the inauguration of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian.

The mastermind behind the October 7th attacks, Yahya Sinwar, has, however, managed to elude the IDF in the tunnels underneath the Gaza Strip. 

Netanyahu’s coalition, consisting of right-wing politicians like the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, began to draw the ire of many countries around the world. 

More recently, the focus has shifted to the north of Israel, where the Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon has been firing rockets into Israel. 

Israel carried out a sophisticated attack by inserting explosives into pagers and handheld radios used by Hezbollah members that killed 42 people and injured more than 3,500, according to Lebanese Health officials.

Israel claimed it to have been a targeted attack against Hezbollah members, but the move drew widespread criticism from the international community due to the number of civilian injuries. The Iranian ambassador to Lebanon was also injured in the pager attacks.

Last week, the Iranians launched a massive rocket attack on Israel in response to the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. 

They fired off around 180 rockets, which were shot down by Israel and the United States. According to reports, one Palestinian was killed in the occupied West Bank.

To date, there are still 97 hostages in captivity. The Hamas-run Health Ministry says more than 41,909 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, have been killed in Israel's military campaign in the Gaza Strip. 

The UN has acknowledged these figures as reliable.

The United States and the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres have again called for a ceasefire, something that looks more unlikely by the day. 

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