The Jerusalem Post - 07.10.2026 — 2026-10-07

It's still October 7 - three years on

(Illustration by Daniel Feigel • Edut 710 Archive)

Naama of a few hours from now,

if you are reading this,

you are alive.

NAAMA, 17 · Kfar Aza, Israel

7/10/2023

During the October 7 attack on Kfar Aza, 17-year-old Naama wrote this message to her future self in eyeliner on her grandfather's prescription slip. Based on testimony recorded by Edut 710. (Text translated from Hebrew)

Opposing defense establishment, Katz threatens war on PA

• By SHIR PERETS and YONAH JEREMY BOB

large-scale attacks.

Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened all-out war on the Palestinian Authority on Tuesday. He based this decision on a scenario in which PA security forces would turn their weapons against Israel, despite IDF sources saying there was no concrete intelligence indicating that such a move was being planned.

When asked whether the claim was manufactured, sources close to Katz told The Jerusalem Post that it was based on an IDF presentation to the cabinet on Monday concerning the military's need to prepare for extreme scenarios. Responding to the IDF sources, Katz argued that October 7 was an extreme scenario and that the military had been wrong not to take the possibility seriously enough.

However, additional IDF sources said the military had no concrete intelligence pointing to a planned rebellion by PA security forces or Fatah-affiliated Tanzim elements. They acknowledged, however, that the IDF must routinely prepare for every scenario, including highly unlikely ones.

Katz presented the scenario during a security briefing to the government on the IDF's preparations in the West Bank. His remarks were not coordinated with the IDF, and military sources did not indicate agreement with his decision to make the scenario public.

"The reference scenario defined for the IDF regarding Judea and Samaria determines that preparations must be made for the possibility of an attack by jihadist elements against the settlers and IDF soldiers, as a lesson from the events of October 7 in Gaza," Katz said.

The IDF has substantially changed its preparedness for surprise attacks since October 7. IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir recently said the military would increasingly prepare based on enemy capabilities rather than relying primarily on assessments of intent. The military has also conducted exercises intended to test its response to

Katz said the IDF was conducting “powerful activity against terrorist centers on the ground, including the evacuation of refugee camps in northern Samaria,” claiming that terrorism had fallen to its lowest level in decades. However, he cautioned that significant challenges remained.

At the same time, Katz said, the IDF was preparing for a scenario in which PA security personnel and Tanzim organizations affiliated with the PA would “turn their guns” against Israelis and IDF troops in the West Bank and communities along the seam line.

"In such a case, war will be declared against the Palestinian Authority, and the IDF will launch a comprehensive offensive in accordance with an organized plan that was formulated and approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and by me, according to the principles outlined for the IDF," Katz said.

The defense minister further implied in his remarks that he had additional intelligence that the IDF did not have.

Sources from the Shin Bet told the Post later on Tuesday that they do not know of any such threat from the PA.

Katz said: “The campaign will be short and powerful, and will include the use of ground and air forces, and the use of special means, the targeting and expulsion of senior officials, the destruction of weapons and military equipment, and the extensive evacuation of residents and destruction of terrorist infrastructure inside the cities and in all refugee camps in Judea and Samaria, in accordance with the Gaza and Lebanon model, alongside reinforcing forces and defending the Israeli communities.”

An IDF source told the Post that, while they would not issue a public statement as Katz did, tensions are admittedly high in the West Bank.

Tensions continue to rise due to the third anniversary of the October 7 massacre, upcoming elections at the end of the month, settler violence, and regional developments with Iran.

MOURNING AT THE NOVA FESTIVAL SITE

A couple embraces among the posters and memorial plaques for the victims of the Nova music festival at Re'im Forest in southern Israel yesterday. Following the official state commemoration that was held on Monday for the victims of October 7 on the Hebrew date, many more ceremonies are set to be held today, on the actual date of the massacre three years ago. (Marc Israel Sellem/ The Jerusalem Post)

Hamas plotting Oct. 7-style attacks on IDF soldiers in Gaza, intelligence indicates

• Jerusalem Post Staff

Defense Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday instructed the IDF to heighten its alert and be prepared for any possible scenario in Gaza ahead of October 7, which falls on Wednesday, as intelligence indicates Hamas's intentions to try to carry out attacks against Israeli soldiers in Gaza on that day.

Defense Ministry said.

This comes “in light of intelligence regarding Hamas’s intentions to launch attacks against our forces in the area on that day,” the

Katz said that the IDF must prepare for the worst and act with great force in response to any intelligence and warning to thwart any threat, beyond the intensive activity already underway.

"If, God forbid, our troops are harmed, Hamas and the population of Gaza will be the ones to pay a heavy price, beyond all proportion," Katz said.

A similar message was also issued when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accompanied by Katz, visited Kissufim on the Gaza border together with the head of the IDF Southern Command.

Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) director David Zini warned the Security Cabinet on Monday that Hamas is planning to kidnap soldiers, The Jerusalem Post reported on Monday.

Former IDF chief of staff and Yashar party head Gadi Eisenkot responded to the defense minister's announcement ordering heightened alert in light of intelligence regarding Hamas's intentions to carry out an attack.

"The defense minister's announcement this morning is an indictment against the government of October 7," Eisenkot said.

"It is a reminder to every citizen of Israel: The government responsible for the failure has suffered a resounding failure in achieving the goals that it itself set. Three years after October 7, Hamas is still the sovereign in the Gaza Strip, and its terrorists still pose a threat to the citizens of Israel," he added.

Amichai Stein contributed to this report.

BEREAVED MOTHER MICHAL NEGRI:

My son took responsibility on Oct. 7, the leaders must too

INTERVIEW

• By KESHET NEEV

During the October 7 massacre, Israelis on the ground took action, battling Hamas terrorists who infiltrated and murdered some 1,200 people and dragged 251 hostages into Gaza.

Michal Negri, a former director-general of the Ra'anana Municipality, lost her son on October 7 while battling the terrorists. She has called on Israel's political leadership to take responsibility for the failures of that day.

"Like my son, hundreds [of civilians] that day just took

MICHAL NEGRI

(Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)

responsibility [and action]. "They were brave, they were responsible, and they were leaders. And I expect the [Israeli] leadership to act in the same way," Negri told The Jerusalem Post in a recent interview.

Negri is now running for the Knesset in the seventh slot on the B'Yachad list led by former prime minister Naftali Bennett ahead of the October 27 elections.

Negri's son, Maj. (res.) Roee Negri, 28, was killed fighting Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Be'eri, one of the hardest-hit communities on October 7, after spending the day rescuing civilians. He had organized

See SON, Page 7

Three years later, I still think about the stories we weren't able to cover

Why we chose Naama's words for our cover, and why I still owe an apology to families

COMMENT

• By ZVIKA KLEIN

There are families who wrote to me after October 7 and never received an answer. Others heard back too late. They sent photographs, names and stories of people they loved, hoping we would write about them in The Jerusalem Post. Some of those stories never appeared. To those families, I am sorry.

I understood what they were asking. After a terrorist attack, part of our job is to call the families and write about the people who were killed. An article can stay with a family for years. Somebody searches a name and finds something about the person: what they did, who loved them, what their friends remember.

After October 7, the numbers kept going up. First hundreds, then more than a thousand. We did not even know who had been killed, who was missing, and who had been kidnapped. Meanwhile, we were covering a war and trying to explain to readers abroad what had happened.

I remember looking through casualty lists and wanting an article about each person. Families were sending messages, press releases were arriving, and we used what we could get to. Sometimes a relative reached a reporter who had time to make the calls. Sometimes a message was buried under hundreds of others.

I don't know how many more reporters we would have needed just to write those stories. We had more than we could handle, every day. That still bothers me, especially when I think about how much harder it may be to find those families' stories years from now.

Take Tamar and Yonatan Kedem-Siman Tov and their children Arbel, Shahar, and Omer, who were murdered in Nir Oz. Yonatan's mother, Carol, was murdered there too. The kibbutz's memorial page recalls that Yonatan, known as Johnny, made sure the field was watered before its kite festival to keep the dust down. I wish we had published more of those details about more people.

When we looked through

See THINK, Page 7

October 7: What Israel has learned – and what remains unresolved

A COUPLE stands together at Mount Herzl Military Cemetery on Monday at the section for victims killed in the October 7 Hamas attack. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

ANALYSIS

• By HERB KEINON

Sadly, Israel knows how to mourn.

It knows how to commemorate the tragedies that have befallen it and the Jewish people. Holocaust Remembrance Day. Remembrance Day for the Fallen of Israel's Wars.

The country knows the drill: the somber ceremonies, the melancholy music, the radio interviews, the kaddish, and the cloud of sadness that descends over the country.

For decades, two central national days of mourning punctuated the civic calendar, alongside religious days of mourning such as Tisha B'Av. Now, there is a third: October 7.

But with this one, even the calendar is complicated.

The massacre took place on Simchat Torah, the 22nd of Tishrei. The official day of remembrance falls two days later, on the 24th of Tishrei – this year, October 5. Civilian commemorations take place on October 7 itself, including Wednesday's large ceremony at Ganei Yehoshua.

The different dates have a

practical explanation. Commemorating the massacre on Simchat Torah would turn a religious holiday into a national day of mourning. But the separation between

the official and civilian ceremonies also reflects something deeper: disagreement over who should lead the mourning, who can speak for the bereaved, and what place

The country experienced a shared catastrophe. Yet, mourning it together has proven difficult.

a government that presided over the catastrophe should have in commemorating it.

There are echoes here of the anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination - a national tragedy whose commemoration also exposes the country's divisions.

It would be tempting to conclude that the separate October 7 ceremonies reflect a country that experienced the same disaster but drew entirely different lessons from it.

Tempting, but too simple.

Israel has absorbed more common lessons about security than its fractured public life – a fracture all the more visible during an election campaign – would suggest. The problem is that those shared lessons have not translated into shared obligations.

There is considerable agreement about the dangers facing the country, and substantial agreement about the need to confront them. Take Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu out of the picture, and the differences between Likud, Yashar, B'Yachad, and

See LEARNED, Page 7

MK DAN ILLOUZ TO 'POST':

Netanyahu must pay a political price for Oct. 7

INTERVIEW

• By SHIR PERETS

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must be replaced because failing to impose a political price for October 7 would undermine accountability and endanger Israel's future, former Likud MK and Yisrael Beytenu candidate Dan Illouz said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post.

"If there isn't a political price to being prime minister when such a disaster happens, then this is something which is dangerous for us as a country," he said.

For Illouz, the question extends beyond who should lead the next coalition. Allowing Netanyahu to remain in power despite what happened on his watch, he argued, would create political incentives to evade responsibility rather than accept it.

DAN ILLOUZ (Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)

on individuals.

Illouz described friends spending prolonged periods in reserve duty, missing their children's births and struggling to maintain their careers. Against that backdrop, he argued, integrating haredi men into the military was an urgent practical necessity.

A religious Jew himself, he described his outlook as classical liberalism: support for smaller government and less state intervention in people's lives.

Once inside the Knesset, however, he said he repeatedly found himself fighting members of his own party to advance those objectives. He accused Likud politicians of protecting interest groups rather than opening markets and Netanyahu of blocking sovereignty initiatives in the West Bank.

In Yisrael Beytenu, he said, he found the combination of economic liberalism, strong security policies and universal service that had initially attracted him to Likud. He pointed to Liberman's refusal to join a government in 2019 over the draft dispute as evidence that the party leader had already been tested on the issue.

"But we didn't deliver total victory," he said.

After making aliyah from Canada in 2009, and graduating from McGill University's law school, Illouz joined Likud before signing a lease. Its commitment to free markets, strong defense and military service for all appealed to him.

ability to rebuild, and Iran's regime remained in power. In his assessment, those outcomes fell short of the "total victory" Netanyahu had promised.

Yet Likud, he said, had worked to preserve its arrangements with the haredi parties instead of delivering meaningful change.

Initially, he said, he accepted the argument that an inquiry should wait while Israel was fighting an intense war. When Netanyahu subsequently raised the possibility of an alternative mechanism, Illouz waited to see what would emerge.

Alongside security and accountability, Illouz presented his move to Yisrael Beytenu as consistent with his views on religion and individual freedom.

The most pressing rupture concerned military service.

He argued that meaningful financial consequences would encourage haredi men to serve, while accusing their political representatives of obstructing integration into both the military and the workforce.

He distinguished Israel's Jewish national identity-expressed through its flag, history, and holidays-from imposing religious observance

Illouz's disillusionment with Netanyahu also centered on the failure to establish a state commission of inquiry into October 7.

Instead, he advocated changing the financial incentives surrounding enlistment, including withdrawing state benefits and municipal tax discounts from those who do not enlist.

When no alternative materialized, he said, he concluded that the delay reflected an attempt to avoid responsibility.

His departure from Likud, he said, reflected a growing divide between the principles that first drew him to the party and the policies he encountered as one of its lawmakers.

Asked whether he supported a state commission of inquiry, his answer was unequivocal: "Definitely."

He backed allowing municipalities to decide whether to operate public transportation on Shabbat, rather than imposing a uniform policy on communities with different identities.

Illouz joined Avigdor Liberman's Yisrael Beytenu in August and subsequently resigned from the Knesset. He holds the tenth spot on the party's election slate.

"I think that it's very important for the next government not to be led by Netanyahu," he said.

Asked what he would reconsider from his time in Likud, Illouz returned to his former confidence in compromise.

"I, unfortunately, don't believe that we can get into a compromise with them," he said.

Growing up in Montreal, he said, the availability of public transportation had never interfered with his religious observance.

On coalition arithmetic, Illouz expressed confidence that the Zionist opposition could secure enough seats to form a government, while acknowledging that doing so

"In general, in every issue when there is religious coercion, I'm against religious coercion," he said. "As a religious Jew, I think it only hurts religion."

BRIGADIER GENERAL

(RES.) EREZ WIENER

Chairman of the Israel

Defense and Security

Forum (IDSF)

Challenged about his previous praise for Israel's wartime achievements, Illouz said he stood by his assessment of the military's performance and believed Netanyahu also deserved some credit.

holes that would preserve the existing situation.

Asked whether he would sit with an Arab party, Illouz answered no, saying his objection concerned recognition of Israel and unequivocal condemnation of Hamas and October 7, rather than Arab identity.

His position on the haredi parties was also firm-and, he acknowledged, represented a change from his earlier belief that negotiations could produce a workable draft agreement.

would require mobilizing voters and persuading the public that change was necessary.

But he distinguished battlefield accomplishments from achieving the government's stated objectives.

The IDF had dealt major blows to Israel's enemies, he said, yet Hamas remained in Gaza, Hezbollah retained the

"I really hope that Lieberman is the next prime minister," he said.

Illouz said committee discussions had convinced him that proposed compromises were being filled with loop-

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Is the IDF prepared to repel a future invasion?

IDF CHIEF of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir addresses the General Staff Forum's October 7 memorial at Zikim, in the Gaza Border Communities, on Monday. (IDF)

• By YONAH JEREMY BOB

After days of hearing how incompetent Israel's entire security apparatus is at checking pilot security for foreign airlines, with trepidation, it is necessary to ask: Three years after October 7, is the IDF really ready enough to prevent a potential future invasion?

The answer varies depending on which front we are discussing.

Israel's neighbors include: Lebanon, the West Bank, Gaza, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt.

The short version is that the chances of an impending large-scale October 7-style invasion are extremely low for the next year, while more unpredictable five years or more down the road.

The IDF is still on the attack and has large security zones in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza, which it lacked before October 7. In the West Bank, the IDF has 25 battalions, up from 11, and has large groups of soldiers deep in problem cities like Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nur al-Shams.

How long the IDF will hold on to these security zones remains an open question.

The Trump administration has pressured Israel to undertake at least partial withdrawals from each zone, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resisted to date, other than in Lebanon, where he has complied, but slow-walked the process.

But what if US President Donald Trump compels Netanyahu or a potential new premier Gadi Eisenkot to withdraw from 63% of Gaza to 30% or 15%? What if the same happens over the next year in Lebanon and Syria?

Will Israel remain ready or go to sleep on the job after several years of quiet within the Green Line?

The Jerusalem Post has received briefings throughout the war and recently, in order to paint a picture of the country's readiness.

Where has the IDF improved?

Unit 504 and collecting physical intel in Gaza

On October 7, the IDF had no human spies in Gaza and was relying almost entirely on cyber or signal intelligence. Unit 504 has gone into overdrive in Gaza since then, but also the IDF has nearly complete freedom to use drones to surveil Hamas from the air as the terror group has lost the capacity to shoot them down.

Some combination of this and other intelligence helped the IDF nab Mu'in al-Arabid on September 2, which led to the killing of three out of Hamas's five brigade commanders in a matter of weeks – with no response from Hamas.

If Israel keeps up even a fraction of this penetration and pressure, it will be in a much better position to block any invasion plans, which currently Hamas could not even contemplate.

---

Red Team Brigade doesn't save IDF from big misses on Iran

A leading failure of IDF intelligence to disregard Hamas invading as a scenario to plan for was the “groupthink” which infected all Israelis.

Shlomi Binder, who took over IDF intelligence in August 2024, made a wise move in elevating “red teams” – teams whose main job is to play devil’s advocate to accepted theories – to having brigade-level human and technological resources, adding hundreds of officers and a more senior commander.

But IDF intelligence has not stopped missing major strategic issues.

During the early 2026 war with Iran, IDF intelligence believed it could and had eliminated a much larger quantity of Iran's ballistic missiles and launchers than it actually did (though it did succeed in disrupting future production), which majorly impacted and impacts the broader strategic picture.

Israeli recommendations to the US about whether the Strait of Hormuz would present a major dilemma which could change the course of the war were wildly off.

IDF intelligence has also been overly optimistic about its ongoing pressure on Hezbollah leading to progress in at least partial disarmament. These issues do not relate directly to invasions, but they show large holes still exist in the intelligence establishment due to "groupthink."

This shows that even with “red teams,” large institutions use paradigms to map out their work and plan their budgets and rarely second-guess those paradigms.

---

From technology

to Islam experts to AI

One major failure of October 7 was that IDF intelligence had been reducing the number of Arabic speakers and experts in Arab and Islamic religion in recent years.

Hacking and intercepting signal intelligence could be used to rapidly translate Arabic messages for non-Arabic speakers. Since October 7, IDF intelligence has been filling the empty seats of Arabic speakers and experts.

But IDF intelligence is about to embark on a new AI-agent revolution. AI will not only be used to help IDF officers complete tasks faster, but will start to co-plan and map out basic strategy with IDF officers.

The upside is that AI agents are expected to identify new methods to gather intelligence that humans could not arrive at on their own.

But the downside could be that only a couple of years after bringing back the human cultural understanding element, IDF intelligence may once again become more dominated by technology, which could lead to missing complex nuances that only human-Islam experts might catch.

---

Lookouts

There is no question that initially after October 7, the IDF has been taking its mostly female low-ranking border lookouts more seriously.

Infamously, the female look-outs who constantly warned of potential Hamas invasion threats had been ignored prior to October 7.

The playing field has changed. The lookouts are now pouring over Hamas moves deep within Gaza near the Yellow Line where Israel's $63\%$ of Gaza territory meets Hamas's area. This is a big improvement from looking at Hamas on Israel's border.

But some lookouts have complained that once again their warnings are not being acted on, even if they are being heard. One lookout recently said that now soldiers on the Yellow Line can only open fire on Hamas with approvals from top commanders at IDF headquarters as opposed to with approvals from battalion field commanders. If so, she asked: what is the point of reporting Hamas movements?

This is not a good dynamic for moving forward.

---

What does

The question of whether Israel has enough troops on the border is ongoing and dynamic.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir said this week that the IDF will coordinate its size and readiness on the borders according to its enemies' capabilities, not intelligence assessments of their intentions.

This includes that the number of forces assigned to readiness and reserve roles across all sectors has doubled.

That sounds good in principle, and if you ask Zamir, he will say that this also means the standing army policing the borders all around is twice what it was in October.

But that is not really the question, as twice as many soldiers would not have stopped Hamas's invasion either, given that Hamas outnumbered Israeli defenders around 10 to one.

So the better question is: how quickly can the IDF multiply its numbers by three or four times? If it can be done in 30 minutes or two hours, then many of the problems from October 7 could be mitigated.

Once it becomes three hours or more, it might still be too late.

In Zamir's speech this week, he said that he has given and will give greater freedom to field commanders to take action and deploy, and that the IDF is working harder for headquarters to get better and faster understandings of the true situation on the border, which might improve reaction time for sending reinforcements. But all of this still depends on the IDF and the country continuing to take Hamas seriously even years into the future.

In addition, the IDF is bragging about its amazing new technologies and connectivity between all sensors. This is fantastic if everything is going well, but if there are no backup sensors that are mobile and which Hamas cannot see, surveil, and plan against, then the Gaza terror group could try to surprise attack the sensors again, the same as it did three years ago.

---

The return of inflated supremacy

In May of this year, the IDF assassinated Hamas's military chief, and then assassinated his replacement within a period of weeks. The group could not respond in any meaningful way.

The IDF seems to strike Hamas officials at will on an almost daily basis, even in a period where nominally the sides have been in a ceasefire for a year.

Paradoxically, this has led the IDF now to emerge with an even greater superiority complex than it had prior to October 7.

To try to avoid falling into the overconfidence of dismissing Hamas, IDF intelligence has shifted gears, such that its field intelligence and technological intelligence arms operate by making their own separate evaluations of the threat.

In addition, there are now both short- and long-term assessments of the invasion threat, which might facilitate catching threats that were missed before. In the past, short- and long-term trends were molded together, often leading to the dismissal of potential distant dangerous trends in the face of the seemingly endless quiet of the present, which made everyone feel more complacent.

All of this has combined with a still relatively new full brigade of hundreds of officers focused on the warning mission, including a brigadier general-level commander, to better ensure that warnings are taken seriously throughout the IDF's byzantine bureaucracy.

Israel currently has most of its enemies on the run.

Yet, politics can get in the way. The government's unforced error of permitting National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to block police efforts to rein in Jewish extremist violence in the West Bank has made the area Israel's current most dangerous front.

Further, it is human nature to lose focus, and relying on technology has its own dangers.

In fact, avoiding an over-reliance on technology may have been a post-October 7 blip on a trajectory in which human intuition continues to be deemphasized, just as most of humanity continues to give up more of its functions to AI automation.

Three years late, "V," the junior intelligence female officer whose personal intuition and warnings about Hamas's invasion plans were ignored by her superiors, received an award. That is the right message, if belated, to send to the IDF intelligence corps.

But with AI ascendant, how many "V"s will be ready to protect Israel in the future?

October 7 victims, bereaved families sue PA for NIS 5.15b.

Complaint by 835 plaintiffs alleges PA, PLO helped finance and enable the Hamas-led massacre

PROF. ADV. GIDEON FISHER (Shai Shkolnik)

• By SARAH BEN-NUN

Days before the third anniversary of the October 7 massacre, 835 plaintiffs, including bereaved relatives, terror victims and soldiers wounded in combat, filed a NIS 5.151 billion civil lawsuit against the Palestinian Authority (PA), the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and former Palestinian prisoners' affairs chief Qadura Fares, who formerly headed the PA's Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, which handles Palestinian prisoners' affairs.

The Jerusalem District Court received the lawsuit on Sunday and assigned it to Judge Eran Shilo. Shilo is already overseeing a coordinated process concerning other October 7-related lawsuits brought by more than 8,000 plaintiffs, focusing first on the shared question of the PA's potential civil liability.

The lawsuit alleges that the defendants helped finance Hamas, knew about the planned massacre and participated in preparations for it. It also alleges that money and other support provided by the defendants helped finance and train terrorists who participated in the attack.

These are allegations made by the plaintiffs and have not been tested or established in court; the defendants have 60 days from the date they are served to submit a defense.

The complaint was filed by Prof. Gideon Fisher's law firm.

It alleges that preparations for the attack began in 2018, when Hamas, PLO factions and other terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip established a joint operations room that coordinated military exercises and training.

According to the plaintiffs,

PA and PLO funding for civilian ministries and governing bodies in Gaza enabled Hamas to direct other resources toward its military operations. The lawsuit further alleges that organizations affiliated with the PLO participated in the joint operations room and in exercises that preceded October 7.

The plaintiffs are seeking compensation under the 2024 Terror Victims Compensation Law, alongside damages for the deaths, injuries and psychological harm they allege the defendants caused.

The 2024 law allows the heirs of a person killed in a terrorist attack to seek NIS 10 million in exemplary damages, and a victim left with a permanent disability to seek NIS five million, from those who carried out the attack or paid rewards for it. These damages may be awarded in addition to other compensation.

The lawsuit includes relatives and estates of four people who were killed, and 824 people who the complaint says suffered physical or psychological harm in the massacre or the war that followed. It says 193 of the injured plaintiffs were left with permanent physical or psychological disabilities.

The remainder comprises claimed financial losses and compensation for emotional suffering.

The complaint lists two related cases already pending in the Jerusalem District Court. One is an NIS 4.491 billion lawsuit filed by Fisher's office in March 2025 on behalf of more than 500 plaintiffs against the same three defendants.

Among the plaintiffs in the new lawsuit is Omer Ohana, whose fiancé,, Maj. Sagi Golan, was killed in the battle of Be'eri in the early hours of October 8, 2023.

“Three years have passed, but it feels as though it happened yesterday,” Ohana told The Jerusalem Post. “People always say that time will take its course and heal, but in practice, time only makes it harder. The pain has turned into suffering.”

Golan, 30, was an officer at the IDF's counterterrorism school. He held a bachelor's degree in philosophy, economics and political science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a master's degree in public policy.

He also volunteered for nearly six years with Paamonim, a nonprofit that provides financial guidance to individuals and families, and helped families facing food insecurity manage their household finances.

"He was the perfect partner," Ohana said. "He was handsome and smart and funny and silly. He was colorblind and did not know how to dress at all."

The couple had been together for six years and were planning a weekend celebration in the desert on October 20. They called it a “celebration of love” rather than a wedding because Israel does not perform same-sex marriages, Ohana said.

On October 7, Golan put on his uniform, assembled his team and left their home in Herzliya to fight. Ohana said Golan helped rescue families trapped in safe rooms in Be'eri's Kerem neighborhood before he was shot while responding to a commander's call for assistance.

The family learned of his death several days later.

Ohana said he decided to join the lawsuit after discussing it with other bereaved families.

"At the end of the day, this is a lawsuit with many, many fam-"

ilies seeking to hold the PLO and other actors responsible for October 7," he said. "Hamas did not act alone, and they need to bear responsibility."

He said monetary compensation could never provide what bereaved families truly wanted.

"They cannot bring these people back to life, and that is the only thing a bereaved family really wants," Ohana said. "But they should be compensated. Those responsible should pay everything the law requires them to pay."

The lawsuit follows other cases filed by Fisher's office in the United States, including separate \$500 million lawsuits against Iran and Syria, as well as litigation alleging that Binance founder Changpeng Zhao and the cryptocurrency exchange provided services that enabled Hamas financing.

Fisher said his office was also examining which of the new plaintiffs hold US citizenship and whether they could pursue claims against the PA and PLO in a US federal court.

Fisher cited the US Supreme Court's 2025 decision in Fuld v. PLO, which upheld a federal law allowing US courts to exercise personal jurisdiction over the PA and PLO in specified terrorism cases. The ruling concerned jurisdiction; it did not establish the PA and PLO's liability in any particular case.

"The new lawsuit joins an international legal campaign that our firm has conducted since October 7, in Israel and the United States," Fisher said.

"Our aim is to create a cross-border legal campaign that will hold those involved in supporting terrorism accountable and obtain the maximum compensation possible for the victims."

---

IDI: Most Israelis view Oct. 7 as central to their vote

\- By AARON GLICK

A majority of Israelis view the events of October 7, 2023, as central to their choice in the upcoming 2026 Knesset elections, data from a September Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) poll showed.

According to the IDI's Israeli Voice Index survey, 62% of respondents said the Hamas attacks were either very central or fairly central to their election decision.

The survey, conducted remotely with 755 Jewish and Arab participants, showed a contrast between Israel's Arab and Jewish populations on the subject, with $68\%$ of Jewish Israelis saying the attacks were central to their party choice, while $32\%$ of Arab Israelis said the same.

IDI President Yohanan Plesner commented on the results, saying that the 2023 Hamas massacre casts “a long shadow over Israel’s upcoming elections.”

“Questions of security, accountability, and whether the lessons of the attack have truly been learned will weigh heavily on many voters as they make their choice,” he said.

“More than three years later, Israel still lacks an independent, authoritative account of what went wrong, and what needs to be fixed to rectify the terrible failures.”

Plesner noted the importance of the next government's responsibility to form a state commission of inquiry on October 7, saying that the future move is "essential."

A YEAR ON FROM TRUMP'S PLAN

Israel still firing in Gaza, Hamas not disarmed

PALESTINIANS WALK along a street lined with destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip on Monday. (Bashar Taleb/AFP via Getty Images)

EXPLAINER

• Reuters

US President Donald Trump's year-old plan to end the Gaza war has stalled, and Israel and Hamas have been battling in the Gaza Strip for almost three years.

The initial phase resulted in a ceasefire on October 10, 2025, and secured the release of the last remaining hostages seized in Hamas's 2023 attacks on Israel, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees held by Israel.

But other goals, including disarming Hamas, securing Israeli withdrawal – as the IDF currently controls about two-thirds of Gaza – and rebuilding Gaza, appear far from reach.

The first phase of Trump's 20-point plan included a suspension of all military operations, Israeli withdrawal from part of Gaza, hostage and prisoner releases and a surge in aid.

Later phases called for Hamas to disarm and for a Palestinian body to assume governance, overseen by the Trump-led Board of Peace. Israel would gradually withdraw, handing territory to a temporary International Stabilization Force (ISF).

"Gaza will be redeveloped for the benefit of the people of

Gaza, who have suffered more than enough," the plan said.

There has been no return to full-scale military operations, but Israeli strikes have continued. Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry claims at least 1,400 Palestinians have been killed since the October ceasefire, many of them women and children, although it does not disclose terrorist casualties.

Israel said its strikes have targeted Hamas, accusing the group of trying to carry out attacks and rearm.

Five Israeli soldiers have been killed by Palestinian terrorists, including both terror attacks and in combat, since the ceasefire, according to the IDF.

The initial phase of Trump's plan foresaw Israel withdrawing to a Yellow Line that left Israeli troops in control of $53\%$ of Gaza. Since then, the military has expanded its effective control to around two-thirds of the territory.

Israeli-backed Palestinian militias opposing Hamas use the Israeli-held zone to launch attacks into Hamas-controlled areas.

---

Aid still not enough

Global hunger watchdog Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) says more than 1.2 million people still face acute hunger in Gaza despite a major scale-up of aid operations after the ceasefire.

In an August report, it cited data showing that an average of 227 trucks a day carried humanitarian and commercial supplies into Gaza from the ceasefire to the end of May – less than half the minimum 600 trucks stipulated in the

Gaza plan.

The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), which controls access to Gaza, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the figure cited in the IPC report.

Israel said around 600 trucks carrying humanitarian aid and commercial goods enter each day, that Gaza is getting enough goods to meet its needs, and that it is meeting its obligations.

Aid agencies have said that Israel is blocking essential items, including metal tent poles, engine oil and spare parts, from entering Gaza, on the grounds that Hamas could use them for military purposes.

Trump said Hamas and other terror organizations had accepted a 15-point roadmap drawn up by the Board of Peace to give up their arms. Israeli forces would withdraw as Hamas disarmed. The ISF, working with a new Palestinian security force, would secure Gaza. Trump called it historic.

Hamas said it had agreed to hand over its weapons to be stored under the control of the US-backed Palestinian technocratic government. Though Hamas rejected the word 'disarmament', this marked a once-unimaginable position for the Iran-backed group.

But Israel, skeptical that Hamas will give up its arms, called the plan unacceptable and said it would not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is fully disarmed.

Plans have taken shape, but it has yet to be assembled. There is a commander – US Major-General Jasper Jeffers – and Indonesia, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Albania, Kosovo, and Uganda have committed personnel.

Jeffers has said the long-term plan is for the ISF to use 20,000 troops and train 12,000 Palestinian police.

The technocratic Palestinian governing body, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, was appointed in

January, led by Ali Shaath, who formerly served as a deputy minister in the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority. It has yet to enter Gaza.

Reconstruction falls short

A year on, Palestinians are still scavenging in the rubble of wrecked buildings for materials to prop up tents and other shelters.

The Board of Peace unveiled a \$2.45 billion plan in September to begin rebuilding Gaza.

That is a fraction of what is needed. The Board of Peace cited an EU and UN assessment released in April that estimated recovery and reconstruction needs at \$71.4b. over the next decade.

While the Trump plan promises to encourage people to stay in Gaza, Israeli right-wing politicians have stepped up calls for the mass removal of Palestinians through “voluntary emigration.”

Defense Minister Israel Katz said last month there was “no real solution for Gaza in the end without this migration.”

The defense ministry in 2025 established an office tasked with overseeing “voluntary emigration” from Gaza, after comments by Trump suggesting Gazans could be permanently displaced.

High Court recommends Yair Golan withdraw Shin Bet protection petition

• By SARAH BEN-NUN and KESHET NEEV

Supreme Court President Isaac Amit on Tuesday recommended that Democrats chairman Yair Golan withdraw his petition seeking an order requiring the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) to protect him ahead of the October 27 election.

Amit made the recommendation during a hearing before a panel that also included Justices Ofer Grosskopf and Ruth Ronnen, after the justices heard Shin Bet representatives behind closed doors without Golan's side present.

Attorney Omri Segev, representing Golan and the party, asked the state and the Shin Bet to update him on the security arrangements that could be offered to Golan.

Amit said the issue was “significant” and that the justices “were and remain concerned” about it. He said the panel understood that the Shin Bet would guide police in accordance with information provided by Golan’s team.

"We have a professional body that specializes in this matter, and we will not intervene," Amit said, before recommending that the petition be withdrawn.

The justices drew a distinction between the threat to Golan's personal safety and disruptions to campaign events. Amit asked whether the Shin Bet was responsible for preventing an election meeting from being disrupted, while Grosskopf said public-order issues were the responsibility of police, not the Shin Bet.

The court did not issue a ruling on Tuesday. Amit instructed state prosecutors to mediate between the relevant bodies and told the parties to submit an update. "It is sad that we have reached such a situation regarding the security of candidates," he said.

According to the petition, police informed Golan's office about a month before it was filed that the threat level against him had been raised to four on a six-point scale.

The Democrats said Golan's threat level was the same as that assigned to former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot and claimed that protection had already been approved for Eisenkot. Eisenkot's party disputed that account on Tuesday, saying it had been informed that the Shin Bet currently had no intention of providing him with security, despite the position of an advisory committee. Eisenkot's team also confirmed this directly to The Jerusalem Post.

The petition documents dozens of threats posted between July and late September, including calls for Golan to be shot or hanged and messages threatening members of his family.

It also says Golan's name appeared in a death-threat letter attached to a brick thrown at Channel 12's studios on July 27. According to the petition, he was the only party leader named as a target in the letter.

The state told the court last week that the Shin Bet had begun implementing a broader security framework for party leaders under a classified September 16 decision by the Ministerial Committee for Shin Bet Affairs.

Under the arrangements, Shin Bet intelligence units monitor threats, coordinate with privately hired security teams and conduct periodic threat assessments. Party leaders may employ armed private guards, but the framework does not commit the agency to providing Golan with a direct Shin Bet protection detail.

State attorney Ran Rosenberg told the court that Golan had a dedicated Shin Bet contact from the agency's Personal Security Unit who could help coordinate security measures with police as circumstances changed. He said the authorities had not initially received a request to authorize weapons for Golan's private security company and that the request was forwarded to the Shin Bet once it was received.

Segev said that, with three weeks remaining before the election, the absence of state protection materially impaired Golan's ability to campaign and the conduct of equal elections, because threats and security warnings had led to events involving him being changed or canceled.

Segev said spontaneous appearances exposed Golan to the risk of an opportunistic attack, while events announced in advance presented the different risk of a planned attack. At public appearances, he said, party volunteers sometimes formed a barrier between Golan and the crowd and were themselves struck, including at events coordinated with police.

He argued that the Shin Bet Law requires the agency to protect Israel's democratic system and institutions and that the government had delegated to Shin Bet Director David Zini the authority to determine the security arrangements for party leaders.

Pressed by Ronnen on what precisely the Shin Bet should be required to do, Segev acknowledged that preventing organized disruptions was not itself the agency's responsibility. He argued, however, that the Shin Bet must ensure its protection arrangements do not leave one candidate unable to meet voters and campaign effectively.

"Yair Golan is under threat. That is the reality we are living in. This is the 'threat from within,'" Democrats director-general Omer Lubaton Granot said, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and those around him of conducting an incitement campaign that endangered Golan's life.

"November 1995 must be a warning sign to all of us," he said, referring to the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

'IDF expecting to resume proactive draft arrests'

• By SARAH BEN-NUN

The IDF expects to resume proactive enforcement operations against military draft evaders and deserters in October after such operations generally did not take place during the recent period, according to a Justice Ministry summary dated Tuesday.

Deputy Attorney-General Dr. Gil Limon said the absence of proactive enforcement for a significant period did not meet the country's security needs, particularly after senior military commanders described expanding the regular army as a strategic necessity.

He said it was also inconsistent with the principle of equality, the state's commitments to the High Court of Justice and a court ruling striking down a law that had prevented the arrest of yeshiva students.

The four-page document summarizes a September 23 meeting led by Limon and attended by senior representatives of the IDF, Military Police, Israel Police and the Population and Immigration Authority.

Military officials said proactive enforcement operations, including arrests, generally had not taken place during the recent period because authorities were concentrating their efforts at border crossings and making adjustments for the holiday season.

They said proactive enforcement was expected to resume in

October, with operations coordinated in advance between Military Police and the relevant Israel Police stations. The coordination is intended to allow the two forces to prepare jointly and provide a police response if exceptional incidents occur.

Overnight Monday, hundreds of haredi protesters surrounded Military Police officers attempting to arrest a draft evader in Modi'in and prevented them from taking him into custody. Israel Police officers were called to restore order and escort the soldiers from the building.

The IDF condemned what it described as an organized attempt to obstruct the arrest and endanger soldiers, saying enforcement would continue equally and within its authority.

During a concentrated enforcement operation from September 1 to 22, authorities arrested 212 draft evaders and deserters at Ben-Gurion Airport, the Allenby Bridge and the Begin crossing near Taba, the summary said. Military officials estimated that 163 of those arrested were haredi (ultra-Orthodox).

Proceedings were initiated against all 212, mostly through military disciplinary proceedings.

Of the 188 people arrested at Ben-Gurion Airport, 64 were caught only when they returned to Israel, raising concerns about gaps in enforcing restrictions intended to prevent them from leaving the country.

The Population and Immigration Authority said gaps identified in border enforcement were closed quickly. Cases involving suspected illegal crossings were transferred to either Israel Police or the IDF, according to the document.

The summary also said that 360 indictments were filed against draft evaders between January 1 and September 23. Military prosecutors estimated that 49 involved haredi draft evaders.

Only 16 indictments involving that group had been filed as of June, indicating an increase in the months that followed.

Military prosecutors said they were advancing measures to shorten from 18 months to one year the period of evasion required before criminal charges may be filed. They also plan to prosecute people who desert during the induction process after 30 days.

Those changes have not yet taken effect. Military prosecutors said they had completed their review of arguments raised by the Military Public Defender's Office and expected to respond during October, after which the measures would be implemented.

The dispute follows a series of Supreme Court rulings requiring the state to enforce the military draft equally.

Keshet Neev contributed to this report.

Bennett: A ‘Deri Law’ will keep draft evaders out of security cabinet

\- By KESHET NEEV

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who leads the B'Yachad party, said on Tuesday that a “fundamental condition” for joining the next government would be the passage of a law barring draft dodgers and those who encourage IDF draft evasion from serving in the country’s security cabinet.

The B'Yachad party is one of the leading parties in the opposition bloc seeking to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the October 27 elections.

"We will pass the 'Deri Law,' which stipulates that a draft dodger will not be allowed to sit in the cabinet – anyone who dodged IDF service or encourages draft evasion will not be allowed to sit in the cabinet," he said.

The former prime minister made the remarks at the Reichman University's International Counterterrorism Conference, where he also stressed the importance of haredi (ultra-Orthodox) conscription to the IDF. He warned that “draft evasion is a strategic threat to Israel’s security.”

Bennett's name for the legislation refers to Shas chairman Arye Deri, who leads the hare-di Sephardic party, which has been a key partner in Netanyahu's coalition.

Though Deri served briefly in the IDF, the Shas party has come under fire over its stance on haredi conscription to the IDF amid the military's severe manpower shortage.

The haredi parties – Shas and United Torah Judaism – encouraged Netanyahu's coalition to advance legislation that critics argued would not increase haredi enlistment during the government's term.

The haredi parties had also boycotted coalition voting, stating that they would not cooperate with Netanyahu's coalition until there was progress on contentious legislation they had been pushing for.

After three years of war, the IDF has repeatedly warned of an urgent manpower shortage.

In March, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir said the IDF could soon collapse if no solution was found for the manpower shortage.

"We will no longer accept the distorted situation in which someone who boasts that he does not send his grandchildren into battle is the one who sends our sons and daughters into battle," Bennett stated.

"Anyone who does not know what it means to lie awake at night in fear of a knock on the door cannot sit in a war cabinet," he added.

Shas MK Michael Malkieli responded to Bennett's announcement, slamming him in return and calling for a law to be passed in the next government to ban Bennett from being able to run in the elections again.

"In the next government, we will pass the 'Bennett Law': A political opportunist who steals the premiership with six seats, against the wishes of his voters, will not be allowed to run for the Knesset again," Malkieli stated.

Bennett has drawn a red line against forming a coalition with the haredi parties, and called for reversing contentious haredi-backed legislation passed by the outgoing government.

He has taken a hardline stance toward haredi conscription to the IDF, as his party's platform seeks to cut all state funding for anyone evading military service and bar any exemptions from the IDF.

Bennett has also developed a plan to reform Israel's education system, proposing that a government led by him would cut state funding to haredi educational institutions that do not teach core curriculum studies.

FORMER PRIME MINISTER Naftali Bennett speaks to the media in Tel Aviv last week. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

NEW JPR STUDY:

50% of British Jews ‘very’ attached to Israel

PEOPLE ATTEND a rally with Campaign Against Antisemitism in London earlier this year. (Jack Taylor/Reuters)

• By ALEX CARSON

Half of British Jews now feel very emotionally attached to Israel, marking a sharp increase following the events of October 7, according to a major new empirical study by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) released on Monday.

The report details how the post-October 7 landscape dramatically shifted emotional ties to the Jewish State and intensified concerns over antisemitism, even as core markers of domestic Jewish religious life and practice remained remarkably stable.

The study, called “October 8 Jews: The impact of October 7” on British Jewish identity, was conducted by Dr David Graham, a Senior Research Fellow at JPR. Utilizing JPR’s longitudinal research panel, the study tracked the exact same group of 2,500 British Jews across multiple survey waves spanning a six-year period from July 2020 to June 2025. This allowed researchers to measure actual individual changes in attitudes and behaviors before and after October 7, 2023, rather than relying on retrospective accounts or single-snapshot polls.

The research aimed to examine whether widely discussed post-October 7 concepts applied to the UK, including the notion of the 'October 8 Jew,' describing individuals who experienced a renewed sense of Jewish consciousness and discovered that previously trusted progressive allies and spaces were no longer reliable and the communal 'Surge', which refers to a broader rise in Jewish activity and engagement particularly among previously unengaged Jews.

The report is organized into three core analytical sections that investigate how British Jews were impacted across different areas of life. The first section explores connections to Israel, the second shifts to experiences of antisemitism, and the third examines broader measures of Jewish identity, peoplehood, values, and religious observance.

The study first asked respondents about their connection to Israel through multiple indicators, revealing that overall emotional attachment rose from 72% in May 2023 to 76% in June 2024 and 78% by June 2025. Beyond that general rise, the report highlights a dramatic shift in intensity, with the proportion of those identifying as very attached surging from 38% prior to the attacks to 50% in June 2024 and holding steady at 51% in June 2025. Analyzing these figures, the report explains that this represents an enduring change rather than a temporary spike, showing that Israel became far more central to personal identity.

Similarly, self-identification as a Zionist saw a statistically significant rise, climbing from 59% in November 2022 to 65% in June 2024, and holding at 66% in June 2025. In contrast, the report notes that those identifying as anti-Zionist remained virtually unchanged at 9% to 10% across the same periods, while the proportion identifying as non-Zionist declined from 17% down to 14%, showing that people on the fence chose a side rather than shifting toward opposition.

The study also tracked the likelihood of making aliyah within five years, where the mean score on a scale from zero to ten increased from 1.38 in November 2022 to 1.95 in June 2024. Analyzing these figures, the report notes that this post-October 7 rise in aliyah sentiment, while reflecting genuine increases in emotional attachment and Zionist sentiment, remained lower than the score of 2.29 recorded in July 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown, explaining that such fluctuations likely reflect both a growing connection to Israel and changing perceptions of how comfortable and settled respondents felt living in the UK at different times.

The second section of the report evaluated personal experiences and perceptions of antisemitism, safety, and mental wellbeing. The survey found that personal experiences of antisemitism escalated drastically, with the proportion of respondents reporting that they had personally experienced at least one antisemitic incident jumping from between 17% and 20% in calendar years between 2020 and 2022 up to 29% in an 18-month tracking period spanning 2023 and the first half of 2024.

Public perception matched this reality; the proportion of respondents who viewed antisemitism as a very major problem in the UK nearly tripled from 17% in May 2023 to 47% in June 2024, reaching 50% by June 2025. This coincided with a sharp drop in average feelings of safety on a zero-to-10 scale, falling from 7.4 in May 2023 down to 6.2 in June 2024 and 5.8 by June 2025.

Consequently, the anxiety index mean score climbed from 2.99 in August 2021 to 3.76 in June 2024. Examining this sharp increase in anxiety, the analysis suggests that while rising antisemitism and declining safety certainly contributed, the elevated stress levels were likely driven primarily by concerns about antisemitism in the UK over and above concerns about Israel's security, noting that anxiety increased uniformly across respondents regardless of their emotional attachment to Israel.

Furthermore, charitable giving priorities shifted notably, with the proportion of respondents prioritizing Israel charities nearly tripling from 6% before October 7 to 16% by June 2025. The report suggests that post-October 7 realities drove the Jewish population toward more particular Jewish causes at the expense of more universal general UK charities.

The third section of the report investigated core dimensions of Jewish identity, peoplehood, and religious behavior. When respondents were asked to position themselves on a zero-to-10 scale regarding the strength of their Jewish identity, more than half chose nine or 10, with mean scores holding exceptionally steady at 8.29 in November 2022, 8.31 in June 2024, and 8.32 in June 2025.

When asked about the importance of feeling part of the Jewish People, 90% considered it important in May 2023, rising slightly to 92% in June

2024 before settling at 89% in June 2025, with those answering very important shifting marginally from 63% to 66% and 64% across those same waves. Similarly, when asked about participation in synagogue prayer services over the preceding 12 months, responses showed negligible movement, with 28% reporting no participation in November 2022 compared to 26% in June 2024 and 27% in June 2025, while regular attendees participating most or every Shabbat remained steady at 26%, 28%, and 27% respectively.

Self-described levels of religiosity also remained flat, with those placing themselves on the more strongly religious side resting at 49% in November 2022, 51% in June 2024, and 50% in June 2025. Taken together, these figures suggest that British Jews did not experience a broad-based transformation in religious observance or general identity strength following October 7.

The report concludes by emphasizing that October 7 acted as a profound watershed primarily regarding emotional connections to Israel and Jewish peoplehood rather than a total structural reinvention of British Jewish life. While solidarity, Zionist identification, and concerns over insecurity heightened significantly, broader indicators of Jewish identity exhibited remarkable continuity with little to no measurable change.

In summary, the report noted that the “challenge facing Jewish leaders, educators and policymakers is how to translate these modest changes into deeper forms of participation, engagement and Jewish flourishing in the years ahead.”

'RAGING DESIRE FOR REVENGE'

The Arab world's commemoration

• By DANIELLE

GREYMAN-KENNARD

PALESTINIANS TAKE control of an Israeli tank after crossing the border into Israel from Gaza on October 7. (Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images)

Three years after Hamas's October 7 invasion of Israel, Arab media coverage of the anniversary has focused heavily on the devastation in Gaza, often making little or no mention of the Israeli civilians killed in the attack that sparked the war and sometimes going as far as to celebrate it.

The Jerusalem Post has not found a statement from an Arab leader expressing sympathy for Israeli victims of the October 7 attack as of Tuesday. However, Hamas shared condemnation of a statement issued by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the invasion.

Hamas has continued to deny targeting civilians, carrying out sexual assaults and mistreating hostages in captivity, claiming that investigations had disproved the allegations. However, a UN mission that visited Israel concluded that there were reasonable grounds to believe conflict-related sexual violence occurred during the October 7 attack and that there was clear and convincing information that hostages had been subjected to sexual violence in captivity. Former hostages have also repeatedly described the torture, starvation and sexual violence they experienced while they were held against their will in Gaza.

Hamas demanded Guterres retract his statement, which acknowledged Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists "brutally" murdered more than 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, deliberately targeted civilians and sexually assaulted and tortured hostages in captivity.

Though Guterres expressed sympathy for the victims of October 7, his statement also addressed the “untold suffering on Palestinians in Gaza” and insisted that both Hamas and Israel need to enter the next stage of the ceasefire agreement.

The Egyptian state-owned Maspero marked the anniversary of Hamas's October 7 attack using the terrorist group's name for the assault, publishing an article titled “New details emerge about the Al-Aqsa Flood... and the region’s involvement in a chaos plot” that featured exclusively Palestinian and Egyptian professors.

The article failed to share the number of Israelis killed during the “crushing blow,” instead reporting only that Hamas was able to “occupy the settlements located in the envelope” and kill “hundreds of soldiers and officers of the Zionist entity.”

Unmentioned in the report was that more than 800 of those killed on October 7 were civilians. The youngest known victim was Naama Abu Rashed, a Bedouin-Israeli newborn who died just 14 hours after she was delivered by emergency Caesarean section after her pregnant mother was shot in the stomach while being driven to hospital.

“Events did not end with the clashes of October 7. As expected, they escalated into a war of extermination waged by the Zionist entity against the Gaza Strip, during which approximately 74,000 Palestinians were killed and about 100,000 others were wounded,” the report continued. “Around 90 percent of Gaza’s buildings were destroyed, and its infrastructure was almost completely obliterated. The war did not stop at Gaza; it extended to wars against Lebanon and then against Iran, leading to subsequent changes in the map of the Middle East."

State media did not mention Hezbollah's attacks on October 8, 2023, which led to the war on the northern front, instead focusing on the view of Dr Emad Mohsen who alleged Israel “unleashed the killing machine accompanied by intense hatred, loathing, and a raging desire for revenge” which resulted in “genocide, famine, crimes against humanity, and the most heinous forms of violent behavior on a human level.”

"Above all, the true face of Zionist extremism, its expansionist desire, its thirst for Palestinian and Arab blood, its call for displacement, genocide, murder, settlement, and the undermining of the Palestinian dream of freedom and national independence, was revealed," the paper published.

Al-Ghad, the first independent daily Arabic newspaper in Jordan, also failed to mention the specific number of victims in its article on the massacre, instead focusing on Israel closing the crossing from Gaza and the West Bank for two days.

"On the morning of October 7, 2023, Hamas surprised Israel with an unprecedented attack on 11 military bases and 22 settlements along the Gaza Strip, resulting in the death, injury, and capture of hundreds of Israelis," it reported on Sunday, adding that the explanation that Hamas argued it committed the attack "to end the unjust siege on Gaza and to thwart Israel's plans to liquidate the Palestinian cause and impose its sovereignty over the Al-Aqsa Mosque."

It also focused on the civilian deaths in Gaza, relying on figures by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry which doesn't distinguish between combatant and civilian deaths.

Lebanese independent news website Janoubia published an analysis of the threats facing Israel and its military successes since October 7 in an article titled “eight dangers threatening Israel on ‘October 7!’”

Although the article referred to the attack as “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” and did not mention its victims, it focused on Israel’s security situation and acknowledged several of the IDF’s achievements.

Can Saudi Arabia bring leverage to its new alliance?

also been working closely with Saudi Arabia even though the US does not want to directly intervene in Yemen, for now.

ANALYSIS

• By SETH J. FRANTZMAN

Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey have agreed to “activate collective defense commitments amid ongoing threats,” Saudi Arabia’s Arab News said on October 6. This is an important step. The new alliance has emerged over the last several months. The Houthi offensive in September in Yemen presented the coalition with its first major test. This is because the Houthis launched missiles at Saudi Arabia and harmed Saudi citizens.

Arab News said that “Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey on Monday agreed to immediately implement collective-defense commitments under the previously agreed Mecca Defense Alliance, including the swift deployment of agreed forces and other military capabilities to the Kingdom amid ongoing threats.”

Saudi Arabia has been working over the last month to prepare a counter-offensive in Yemen. This initiative came after setbacks hit the forces of the internationally recognized government of Yemen which lost ground around the Bab el-Mandeb strait. Many observers wondered whether Pakistan and Turkey would come to Riyadh's aid. All of these countries are either partners or close allies of the US, and they have advanced military equipment, partly as a result of their US affiliation. However, it was not clear that Turkey would want to get involved in a conflict in Yemen. In part this is because Ankara tries to balance relations with Iran, with which it shares a border. Pakistan also has ties with Iran and shares a border with Iran.

Now, Turkey and Pakistan appear to be increasing their support for Riyadh. “The decision was announced following an emergency meeting of the alliance’s Strategic Political and Defense Committee in Riyadh to discuss security developments and threats Saudi Arabia is facing during the regional conflict with Iran and its proxies. The alliance was formed by an agreement signed on August 7,” Arab News noted.

Saudi Defense Minister, Prince Khalid bin Salman, wrote on X that the meeting “affirms the solidarity and unified stance of our countries in confronting the sinful aggressions that targeted the Kingdom and the Holy Sanctuaries, activating collective deterrence against these aggressions, and against all those standing behind them within the framework of the [Mecca] Defense Alliance.”

The new committee of the alliance has "reviewed the outcomes of political and military consultations and approved recommendations affirming the commitment of the alliance to collective defense and a unified response to threats." It appears that forces with various types of unnamed capabilities will now be deployed. This could include Pakistani aircraft or air defenses. Similarly Turkey could deploy defensive solutions. Intelligence and targeting is also important. Reports indicate the US has

This could enable important coordination between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan and streamline various processes to get the alliance off the ground. Some have argued that the Middle East could be moving toward a regional NATO. What has made NATO unique since its founding is how its members often train and work together. This kind of cooperation can't happen overnight. It means the Yemen conflict could help accelerate processes in real time. This will be good for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its partners.

In a changing world order where the US is shifting its commitments, many regional powers will need to step up. All the countries in the new alliance are regional powers. Turkey, for instance is not only in NATO, but is a country with a strong industrial defense base. Pakistan has faced struggles in recent years due to instability at home and insurgent movements in places like its Baloch areas bordering Iran. Saudi Arabia, a major purchaser of American defense products, has sometimes struggled to put the pieces together in the field to achieve its goals. This was especially true in Yemen where Riyadh has backed the national government since 2015. However, its intervention in Yemen did not go as easily as planned. Iran armed the Houthis who target Saudi Arabia with drones and missiles.

According to Arab News “Pakistan and Turkey commended the Saudi Armed Forces for their vigilance, state of readiness, and professional performance and efficiency in confronting threats and protecting the Kingdom.” The report added that “as part of efforts to establish the institutional structure of the alliance, the committee appointed retired Lt. Gen. Numan Mahmud of Pakistan as its first secretary-general, for a three-year term. The alliance members welcomed his appointment and expressed confidence in the contribution he would make to developing the pact and advancing its objectives.”

The Mecca Agreement will now need to translate into practical measures. Turkey's TRT state media heralded the moves taking place in Saudi Arabia, noting that Turkey "was represented by Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, National Defense Minister Yasar Guler and Chief of General Staff General Selcuk Bayraktaroglu. The meeting comes amid renewed Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and wider concerns over regional security." TRT added that "Fidan said the three countries discussed steps to support Saudi Arabia's defense while also examining ways to resolve regional issues peacefully through dialogue.

The alliance was established in August by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, with the three countries subsequently agreeing to build permanent institutions and strengthen collective deterrence and defense capabilities."

THE JERUSALEM POST • WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2026

NEWS

Mamdani's \$7.4 million antisemitism strategy funds Israel-critic groups

\- By MATHILDA HELLER

Millions of dollars in New York City funding earmarked for Mayor Zohran Mamdani's new antisemitism strategy could flow to organizations with records of anti-Israel advocacy, financial filings indicate.

Last week, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani unveiled what he described as the first municipal strategy of its kind in the United States to combat antisemitism, announcing investments in hate-crime prevention, security coordination and Jewish cultural institutions.

The strategy outlines a \$7.4 million package of measures to combat antisemitism, including \$6.4m. in grants for hate-crime prevention and survivor support, \$1m. for security upgrades at synagogues and other houses of worship, expanded Holocaust education, investment in Jewish cultural and historical institutions, and renewed coordination between city agencies and Jewish institutions.

However, the 30-page strategy does not adopt a formal definition of antisemitism, saying that New York City can combat antisemitism without adopting a single definition.

The omission has drawn criticism from Jewish organizations, which say that the strategy also fails to address the relationship between anti-Zionism and antisemitism or the forms of anti-Jewish hostility Jewish New Yorkers are currently encountering.

The words Zionism, Zionist, or even anti-Zionist do not appear even once in the entire document. Israel is only mentioned a couple of times.

Part of the strategy involves doubling funding for Partners Against the Hate (PATH) grants to community-based organizations aligned to the prevention framework with a renewed focus on countering online hate speech, data collection, restorative justice and survivor support. This is now set at \$6.4m.

One of the top advocacy groups involved in PATH is the Arab American Association of New York, an anti-Israel organization previously run by pro-Palestine activist Linda Sarsour.

According to the Arab American Association of New York's (AAANY) 2025 Form 990, the association gave a grant of \$57,779 to Council on American-Islamic Relations, New York (CAIR-NY) as part of PATH, and a \$58,084 grant to Jews For Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ), also as part of PATH.

In fact, AAANY has given over \$223,000 to CAIR-NY since 2021.

CAIR was founded 30 years ago as an organization dedicated to fighting anti-Muslim hate. It has, however, become known for its extreme anti-Israel and antisemitic messaging.

Co-founders of CAIR, Omar Ahmad, Nihad Awad, and Rafiq Jaber have all faced government scrutiny over their ties to Islamist terrorism.

Ahmad, according to the FBI, led a pro-Hamas conference in Philadelphia in 1993, where he and the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and Islamic Association of Palestine members discussed how to best support Hamas while concealing their true beliefs, such as support for

Hamas conquering all of Israel, from the US.

Recently, the New Jersey branch of CAIR came into the headlines for teaching students that the 9/11 terror attacks were due to “America’s support of Israel” and said, “terrorism is defined differently by different groups of people.”

CAIR has not been designated as a terrorist organization by the US federal government, but it has faced state-level terrorist designations by Republican governors in Texas and Florida.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott designated CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organizations in 2025, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet voted to designate CAIR as a domestic terrorist group in September 2026.

JFREJ is a progressive Jewish organization that strongly opposes the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism. It deems Israel's actions “occupation and apartheid.”

Figures online such as David Kelsey have noted the irony of city anti-hate money being passed through AAANY to groups like CAIR.

It is also relevant as CAIR was one of the largest backers of Zohran Mamdani's winning mayoral campaign.

In the lead-up to the November New York City mayoral election, the Washington Free Beacon reported that Mamdani's campaign received \$100,000 from a CAIR-affiliated PAC.

The Jerusalem Post reached out to CAIR for comment.

UK Green Party in turmoil over 'Zionism is racism' vote

oline Lucas spoke against the motion during the debate.

• By MATHILDA HELLER

The UK Green Party is facing a growing internal revolt over its adoption of a “Zionism is racism” policy, with senior members resigning or considering resignation and the European Greens distancing themselves from the party’s position.

As reported by The Jerusalem Post on Sunday, the UK Green Party voted in the controversial “Zionism is Racism” motion at its party conference in Brighton, UK, on Sunday, passing the motion 1,022 votes to 813.

In doing so, it became the first mainstream party in Europe to declare itself openly anti-Zionist.

Following the result, Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar announced that Green Party leader Zack Polanski was barred from entering Israel.

Israel's foreign ministry described the motion as a “clear antisemitic text” and beyond “the boundaries of legitimate political debate.”

The passing of the motion has sparked condemnation from across the UK, including from politicians, Jewish groups and officials.

The Spectator revealed Monday that over a dozen Labour members of Parliament (MPs) – led by former Home Office minister Mike Tapp – reported the Green Party to Sussex Police and the Equality and Human Rights Commission over its “Zionism is racism” policy, and asked the commission to examine whether events at the Green conference may have crossed into criminally actionable racial or religious hatred against Jewish people.

However, some of the greatest losses have come from within the party itself.

Amnesty International UK chair

Sandy Ruthven has left the Green Party following the party's adoption of its "Zionism is racism" motion at its conference over the weekend.

Ruthven, who received 44% of the vote as Green candidate in the Bristol Mayor election in 2021, wrote on LinkedIn, “My heart has always been with the Green Party of England and Wales, and I have been a member for longer than I can remember. But this motion at conference marks the end of the line for me.”

"I have resigned my membership. In seeking to court the hard-left vote, we have failed to confront prejudice when it appears on our own side. In doing so, we have led ourselves into a political cul-desac. I sincerely hope the party finds a way back," he said.

A man named Julian Mellor said he too was leaving the party, despite a long-standing membership.

"I first joined what was then the Ecology Party in 1981. Having spent a life supporting them, this motion seems to indicate that they've taken a direction different to my own. The fact that a motion that seems better suited to student politics made its way into the policies of what should be a serious national political party is a rather sad testament to the quality of leadership," he said.

The chair of Jewish Greens, Vivien Lichtenstein, told the BBC she will likely leave the party as a result of the motion.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today program, she said, "I haven't decided yet... It is quite possible that I will leave the party... I'm giving it a little time and to talk with colleagues."

Former Green Party leader Car-

Following the result, she posted a statement saying that even though she “views the Israeli government as racist, that its actions in Gaza amount to genocide and [supports] the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) campaign,” she remains “firmly opposed to this motion.”

She went on to say that Zionism is “both racist AND a response to racism” and said there is “oversimplification at the heart of the motion [which leads] to many Jewish members feeling scared.”

Similar views were echoed by MPs such as Ellie Chowns and Carla Denyer.

The European Greens – the coalition of Green parties across Europe – announced it was distancing itself from the UK branch as a result of the motion.

In a statement, the EU Greens said it had contacted the UK Greens before the vote to express “deep concern” about the motion. The fact that the motion passed “goes against our agreed positions,” EU Greens said, adding that it therefore “unequivocally distances [itself] from it.”

"As EGP (European Green Party), we will immediately demand clarity from the leadership and parliamentary group of GPEW (Green Party of England and Wales) to understand the official party policy, how they position themselves toward the self-determination of Israelis and Jews as well as the protection of Jewish people."

While the motion passed by 1,022 votes to 813, it is worth noting that this is only a tiny proportion of the Green Party's overall membership. With 230,000 members, the vote represented less than $1\%$ of the party.

THINK

Continued from Page 2

FELLOW ACTORS stand in mourning next to the coffin of actor, singer and cultural figure Illi Gorlitzki at the Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv yesterday. Gorlitzki died at 91 on Sunday and was laid to rest in Kfar Saba. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

testimonies for our October 7 cover, there were accounts of heroism, faith and Hamas's antisemitism. Others described Arab and Jewish Israelis helping each other. There were so many powerful stories. Naama's hit us in the stomach. She was 17, from Kfar Aza, and she thought she was going to die. On her grandfather's prescription, she wrote:

"Naama of a few hours from now, if you are reading this, you are alive."

She couldn't find a pen, so she used eyeliner. We kept coming back to that: her grandfather's prescription, whatever she had available to write with, and the thought that she might survive to read it. At 17, she had left a message for herself on the small chance that she would get through those hours.

It was also very visual. A prescription is familiar to readers almost anywhere. They can imagine that piece of paper in their own home, belonging to a parent or grandparent. These ordinary details helped explain what we wanted the cover to convey about the everyday people caught in the attack.

There was hope in her sentence, too. She allowed for a future, even one only a few hours away, and lived to describe what she had written. The illustration on our cover is based on that account, recorded by Edut 710.

We chose one testimony for the cover knowing how many others deserved that space. I hope readers who look up Naama's account will stay with the archive and listen to someone else as well.

Edut 710 began as a volunteer initiative after the attack. Witnesses can tell their accounts at their own pace, including life before October 7 and what followed. Their consent governs publication and use. A detail that a reporter might have left out to meet a deadline can remain available to someone studying the account decades later.

Its Smart Archive, developed with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, makes the testimonies searchable in Hebrew and English. That gives readers overseas a way to find accounts that never reached an international newspaper.

Organizations doing this work need money to continue. Volunteers need equipment, recordings need editing and translation, and somebody has to look after the material for years. Those considering a donation should think about supporting that work beyond the anniversary, when it will still need doing.

We know from the Holocaust how much depends on what is collected while witnesses are still able to speak. Letters, photographs and recorded accounts allow people born decades later to examine what happened. October 7 is already being denied and distorted. The material we preserve has to be accurate, properly attributed and available for others to examine, with uncertainty acknowledged and errors corrected.

Families have a part in this as well. A relative may be the only person who can identify someone in a photograph or explain why an object mattered. That knowledge can be recorded now, with their consent, rather than left for somebody to guess at later.

Our cover gives space to a teenager who wrote something she thought she might never read. Because her account was recorded, readers can hear her tell it herself. There are many more people we should be listening to.

I keep thinking about the families who wanted us to know who their loved ones had been. I want us to keep making room for those stories in The Jerusalem Post, and to help readers find the accounts being collected elsewhere.

We could not tell every story then. We still have a responsibility to try now.

🔗 [系统已自动跨页缝合转版续文：《LEARNED》]

Yisrael Beytenu – especially on fundamental security questions – become much harder to discern than the heated political rhetoric would suggest.

That does not mean there are no differences. Disagreements remain over priorities, the timing and scope of military operations, and how to best leverage military achievements into diplomatic ones.

But the broad understanding that Israel cannot allow an enemy to build an army on its borders, rely on assurances that the enemy is deterred, and wait for the danger to materialize, is not confined to one political camp.

Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir's call on Monday for an assertive offensive posture and pledge not to rely on deterrence but to prevent Israel's enemies from building up their strength and capabilities unchecked finds support well beyond the governing coalition. The notion that Israel must act against developing threats, rather than believing the enemy would not dare to act or merely preparing to absorb the next attack, has become part of the country's post-October 7 mindset. The same is true of the deep skepticism toward Palestinian statehood.

Much of the international community still presents a Palestinian state as the solution to the problems in the Middle East. For many Israelis, however, October 7 points in the opposite direction: relinquishing control would simply create another territory from which an armed enemy could organize, prepare, and eventually, attack.

Many point to Gaza and conclude that there is no reason at this time to believe that an independent Palestinian entity in Judea and Samaria would look any different. The burden of demonstrating that it would is much, much heavier than it was before October 7.

So where do the country's divisions lie, three years after October 7?

First, there is Netanyahu himself. He remains as much of a fault line after the massacre as he was before it. For some, the subsequent military achievements – the new Middle East emerging from decisions he took – show why he must remain in office. For others, the failure that made those campaigns necessary demonstrates why he must leave.

But the divisions are not only about Netanyahu. They are also about whether agreement on the dangers facing the country carries with it agreement on the obligations those dangers impose.

Two stand out: the obligation to help protect the country, and the obligation to take responsibility when that protection fails.

On the first, October 7 drove home the country's need for soldiers and reservists. Yet, that lesson has not translated into agreement that the burden must be shared more broadly.

And therein lies the disconnect. If the danger threatens everyone, how can confronting it remain the responsibility of only some? How can one family be expected to send its children to the army and repeatedly to the reserves, with all the risks and disruption that entails, while another family's sons remain exempt?

On the second question, accountability, the country remains divided over what taking responsibility requires, who must do so, and how the failures should be investigated.

The military achievements since October 7 matter enormously. They have changed Israel's strategic position. But they do not answer the questions about the decisions, assumptions, and failures that preceded the massacre.

A leader can deserve credit for what happened afterward and still owe an accounting for what happened before. The two are not mutually exclusive.

The overarching issue is reciprocity.

Citizens owe something to the country and to one another. The state and its leaders owe citizens protection, competence, and accountability. October 7 exposed how indispensable those obligations are.

Three years later, it is fair to ask: are these reciprocal obligations being honored?

Are all citizens doing their part, or have extraordinary sacrifices by some become a convenient substitute for participation by others?

Has the state restored its ability to protect its citizens, and have its leaders acted competently and accepted responsibility?

Three years on, the jury is still out. In another three weeks, for the first time since October 7, that jury – the nation – will have its say via the ballot box.

SON

and led teams of soldiers who described the kibbutz as the place where “the gates of hell opened,” Negri said.

Nobody in the IDF had called up Roee to go south to Be'eri. He had gone on his own and entered with his team, house by house, dividing up the kibbutz with his team as they fought against Hamas terrorists.

"He insisted on going first in every house," Negri said.

After the loss of her son, Negri said that she had never thought about going into politics. However, she decided to do so after Bennett reached out to her, as she felt she could have the biggest impact by joining his party.

Bennett's B'Yachad party is one of the leading parties in the opposition bloc seeking to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the October elections. The party has recently been polling at around 13-15 seats, making Negri well-positioned to enter the Knesset.

Negri said that the first thing she considered most important after October 7 was for the country's leadership to take responsibility and for a state commission of inquiry to be conducted.

Three years after the massacre, no probe has yet been established to investigate government failures, amid an ongoing dispute over what kind of investigation should be conducted and who should lead it.

“First of all, everyone that was in the government, in any position of management, has to take responsibility and be inquired, so we will be sure that it will never happen again.”

"How can you be sure that it will not happen again if you don't inquire and ask questions?" she continued.

"I think they owe it – first of all, to the families that gave all they had. They owe it to the people that were torn out of their houses, they owe it to the people that were murdered, they owe it to the people that were raped, and they owe it to every citizen in Israel."

She said Netanyahu should have stepped down immediately the day after the attacks.

"All of them should have stepped down and said, 'let's think, let's take the responsibility.'"

"Anyone that was there [in the government during] October 7 should have stepped down three years ago."

Regarding Netanyahu's attempts to pass a contentious law for a political probe into October 7, Negri said that this was another attempt to avoid responsibility and “set the fire to anyone else but them – and this is not the way that I think a leader should act.”

Negri told the Post that the upcoming elections “are crucial.”

"I think the country needs a new leadership... a leadership that sees the people."

“What we have experienced in the last years is a leadership that sees only itself, that works for itself, and that is interested in staying and doing anything that will keep them on their chairs,” she added.

Negri said that during and immediately after the October 7 attacks, she had also seen that Israel has citizens that are “the best people in the world.”

"I think that we can all go back to where we were together, fighting together and loving together and working together and building this country together and all the communities to come together," she said.

"We are in a country that needs to be healed, needs to have quiet, and needs to have a leadership and government that works for it and that takes care of it, and gives the people the quiet and the safety," Negri added.

8

• Sports Editor: URIEL STURM

Comments/Questions: sports@jpost.com

Israeli journalists clash with Irish soccer head

• By JACOB GURVIS/JTA

Israel and Ireland's UEFA Nations League rematch on Sunday ratcheted up tensions between the two teams, in a sports drama where emotions over the Gaza war have fueled theatrics as intense as the match itself.

During the 1-1 draw played in Serbia, Ireland's captain declined, as in the last match, a pregame handshake with his Israeli counterpart, Irish players bowed their heads during the playing of the Israeli national anthem and the team donned black armbands to signal their disapproval of Israel's actions in Gaza.

Israeli players also wore black armbands displaying "7/10," in recognition of the anniversary of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.

Tensions also spilled off the pitch.

Staffers for the Irish team abruptly cut short a Saturday press conference with Irish head coach Heimir Hallgrímsson after a tense back-and-forth between Israeli journalists and Ireland's press officer, Kieran Crowley.

While both Hallgrímsson and Israeli coach Ran Ben-Shimon, in his separate meeting with the media, insisted their focus remained on the game itself, Ireland's press conference took a turn when an Israeli journalist asked Hallgrímsson for his thoughts on the flydubai hijacking last week.

“What do you say about the people that you support? Their ideology is based on murder,” the reporter asked. “Just this week, one of them tried to kill 170 Israeli passengers, including 27 innocent children and thousands of others.”

Crowley interrupted, saying, "We are not doing any questions like this today. We are doing football questions."

Another Israeli reporter then asked Hallgrímsson about his team calling Israeli players “monkeys” during the September 27 match. Crowley again interrupted, saying, “That is completely untrue... That’s a lie. You’ve just broadcast a lie.”

The press conference was then cut off, as the reporter argued with a staffer who confiscated the microphone. UEFA barred the two Israeli reporters from the postgame media gathering on Sunday.

The incident came after months of controversy leading up to the September 27 match between the two sides, which Ireland faced intense pressure to boycott. Ireland has a long history of pro-Palestinian policies and anti-Israeli sentiment.

There were additional signs of tension on the field, with Ireland's head of athletic performance, Damien Doyle, alleging that an Israeli player spat at him as the teams left the field at the end of the first half. Israel's football association denied the accusation.

After the match, Hallgrímsson called on UEFA to ensure the two teams do not face each other in the future.

“That’s not ours to decide, that’s UEFA,” he said. “I wouldn’t want or wish any national team to go through what we have gone through these two weeks. UEFA needs to step in and do something.”

Hallgrímsson also indicated that he had made a “mistake” by sharing his stance on the war in Gaza. In the lead-up to the matches, he had told reporters, “We’re not playing with genocide, we’re playing against genocide. We’re playing against Israel, we’re not playing with Israel.”

On Sunday, Hallgrímsson added that “my feelings and my opinions should be set aside when I am spokesman for an organisation.”

Sunday's game included Irish player Finn Azaz, whose mother has Israeli heritage, as a substitute.

'We were playing for you': Hapoel Tel Aviv remembers October 7

continue living our lives the way we did before."

HAPOEL TEL AVIV held its annual 'Together Forever' memorial ceremony this week, honoring the victims of October 7 and those who fell in battle. (Hapoel Tel Aviv/Courtesy)

SPOTLIGHT

• By JOSHUA HALICKMAN

Three years after the October 7 massacre, the Shlomo Group Arena was filled with the people who normally come there to celebrate Hapoel Tel Aviv basketball.

On this night, however, the familiar red-and-white stands carried a different weight.

Hapoel held its annual “Together Forever” memorial ceremony, bringing together fans, bereaved families, players, club officials and supporters to remember those who were murdered on October 7, 2023 and those who fell in the battles that followed, while honoring the courage of those whose lives were cut short.

It was an evening of remembrance, grief and reflection, but also of community – a recognition that for Hapoel Tel Aviv, the events of October 7 are not something separate from the club's story. They are woven into the lives of its fans, its players and its wider family.

President Isaac Herzog delivered a message of strength to those gathered, while musician Boaz Banai, closely associated with the club, performed several emotional songs.

But the heart of the evening belonged to the families.

Sharon Kutz spoke about the loss of her brother Aviv, her sister-in-law Livnat and their children Rotem, Yonatan and Yiftach, who had played in Hapoel's youth academy. All five were murdered in their home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7.

Shai HarMash spoke about his son Omer, who was murdered in the safe room of his home that day. Amit Halivni shared the story of her husband Yuval, who fell in battle on October 9, while Eyal Eshel spoke about his daughter Roni, an observation soldier who was killed during the battle at the Nahal Oz military base.

Their stories gave a human face to the names and numbers associated with October 7, reminding those in attendance of the individual lives, families and dreams behind every loss.

Hapoel owner Ofer Yanai reflected on how the club responded in the immediate aftermath of the attack and how, for him, the need to tell those stories became personal.

“That Black Saturday was a difficult, bitter and painful event,” Yanai said. “On Sunday, we had to wake up to a world that came after it and we asked ourselves what we could do. We helped and supported.”

When Hapoel returned to the court soon afterward for a game against the London Lions, Yanai wore a shirt bearing photographs of people who were still believed to be alive and missing.

Over time, the shirt changed as the reality became clearer.

“That shirt ‘evolved’ to include those who had fallen and I would wear it to all of the games,” Yanai said.

Two weeks later, Hapoel traveled to Paris, bringing a group of young fans from the kibbutzim with them. The children shared their experiences at a press conference, allowing people far from the communities attacked on October 7 to hear directly from those who had lived through it.

"The reason we brought children was because on October 7, I was 30 or 40 kilometers away from the events," Yanai explained. "I know many people who were affected by what happened and even for me it didn't feel real. So I wanted people to hear the stories directly from the children."

For Hapoel's players, the connection was just as immediate.

Captain Bar Timor spoke about the unique responsibility of representing a club whose supporters themselves had been among those affected by the attacks.

"October 7 touched the homes and families of many Hapoel fans," forward Tomer Ginat said. "For us as players, knowing that people we see in the stands and who support us wherever we go were hurt so terribly stayed with us. We thought about them then and we think about them today as well."

Ginat recalled Hapoel's first game after October 7, in Venice. The players were preparing in the locker room, but basketball hardly seemed relevant.

“Everything felt disconnected,” he said. “We didn’t talk about the team we were facing, not even for a moment. We talked about why we were going out to play and the reason was very clear: We were playing for you. For the people of Hapoel. For our fans who had been through and were still going through, so much.”

That sense of playing for something larger than the scoreboard has remained part of Hapoel's identity ever since.

Club owner Gili Raanan recalled driving his son to his military base in the south on October 7 before becoming caught in traffic near Kiryat Gat, surrounded by smoke and chaos.

"I told myself one thing: When all of this is over, we will try to do things differently," Raanan said. "We cannot

Three years later, the empty seats inside the arena remain a powerful reminder of those who will never return to them.

"The empty seats in front of me here are not empty seats," Raanan said. "They represent people who were part of us, part of our community and part of our families. They are part of our hearts, and we miss them every day."

Nothing, Raanan acknowledged, can truly fill those seats or undo what happened. But he believes the community created around sport can help provide a way forward.

"You can't truly fix what happened or fill those seats again," he said. "But out of this terrible tragedy, we have to think about how we build new lives and how we move forward."

For Raanan, Hapoel Tel Aviv is part of that process.

“Sport, and Hapoel Tel Aviv in particular, are among the strongest ways we have to build and live together as a community,” he said. “To create and build lives, while remembering those who were supposed to be here with us and are not.”

Timor echoed that sentiment, describing October 7 as a day that left behind pain, shattered families and an absence that can never completely be filled.

But he also spoke about the importance of remembering the people behind the loss – their lives, dreams, families and the impact they had on those around them.

"As Hapoel Tel Aviv's captain, I know how much power there is in our team, our club and our community when we stand together," Timor said.

"On the court, we play to win, but some things are much bigger than any game or any result."

And so, three years later, Hapoel's community gathered once again.

Not simply to look back, but to say that the names and stories of those who were murdered and those who fell remain part of the club's collective memory.

"We are remembering, honoring and telling the families who lost those dearest to them that we remember, we will not forget and we will continue to carry their memory with us," Timor said.

For one evening, the arena was not about the next game, the next opponent or the next result.

It was about the people who should have been there.

And about a community determined to keep their memory alive.

See more Israeli sports coverage at www.sportsrabbi.com/en

Rays, White Sox jump out to 2-0 series advantages

• Field Level Media

Richie Palacios ripped a two-run single to highlight a four-run fifth inning, fueling the Tampa Bay Rays to a 5-2 victory over the New York Yankees on Monday in St. Petersburg, Florida, and a two-games-to-none edge in an American League Division Series.

Jonathan Aranda and Junior Caminero each had two hits and a run for the Rays, who are in control of the best-of-five series. Game 3 is Wednesday in New York.

"We match up with anyone," Palacios said on MLB Network. "We go out there and work. We have sacrificed a lot this season, so we match up with anyone and we don't care who is out there."

The Yankees did themselves no favors by committing four errors, including three in the first inning.

"A really rough night to say the least for us," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. "We've got to get over it. We've responded all year to difficult times, and we've got to do it again."

New York's lone bright spot was Ben Rice, who hit solo homers in the fourth and eighth innings. He has two multi-homer games in this postseason.

In a 1-1 game, Aranda singled to lead off the fifth inning, advanced to third base on Caminero's single and scored on Liam Hicks' slow grounder to second base. Caminero moved to third base on the play and scored on Chandler Simpson's infield single.

Brent Headrick relieved Cam Schlittler (1-1) and struck out the first batter he faced before an error by short-stop George Lombard Jr. on a ball hit by Jonny DeLuca extended the inning. DeLuca then stole second. Palacios, a New York native, then drove a line-drive single to center field on a 3-2 pitch, plating both runners and boosting the Rays' lead to 5-1.

"I was able to lay off a couple pitches and get to 3-0," Palacios said. "(Rays manager Kevin) Cash gave me the green light. I just took a hell-hack on a 3-0 pitch high. After that, I was able to settle down and get a pitch over the middle of the plate, and I put a good swing on it."

Schlittler was charged for four runs (two earned) on six hits in 4 1/3 innings. He walked one and struck out two.

Cam Booser (1-0) relieved Rays starter Freddy Peralta and induced Cody Bellinger to fly out with the bases loaded to end the top of the fifth inning.

Ian Seymour struck out four batters while allowing just one hit, Rice's second homer, in three innings. Bryan Baker tossed a 1-2-3 ninth to notch his second save in as many games of the series.

Sloppy defense by New York led to Tampa Bay opening the scoring in the first inning. Yandy Diaz reached base after third baseman Ryan McMahon failed to handle a routine grounder. Diaz advanced to second on a single by Aranda and scored after a throw by second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. in a bid to complete a double play sailed wide of first base.

"Not great. Not how you draw it up," McMahon said. "I thought Cam did a great job trying to pitch through all that stuff."

Looking ahead to the series' shift to Yankee Stadium, Boone said: "Whatever it takes, we've got to do it offensively and we've gotta be able to score some runs and do a better job of preventing than we did tonight."

White Sox 4, Guardians 3

Braden Montgomery delivered the go-ahead, two-run double in the sixth inning and Chase Meidroth followed with an RBI to send Chicago over Cleveland in Game 2 of the American League Division Series.

"I can't even describe how it felt," Montgomery said. "It's exhilarating. I was just taking it all in."

Chicago leads the best-of-five series 2-0 and can advance to its first AL Championship Series since 2005 with a win on Wednesday at home. The White Sox have won all four of their postseason games after claiming the league's final wild-card berth.

"Our club has been confident the entire year, regardless of the previous result," White Sox manager Will Venable said. "They come in ready to play and turn the page. Now, we're really excited to get playoff baseball to our fans."

Montgomery's two-out, opposite-field double off Erik Sabrowski (0-1) landed just inside the foul line in right to drive in Miguel Vargas and Randal Grichuk. Hunter Gaddis entered and allowed Meidroth's opposite-field hit that plated Montgomery to extend the White Sox's lead to 4-2.

"I was just ready for something to attack, and I was ready for his hardest stuff," Montgomery said of his big hit. "I gave myself my best chance to succeed."

Sean Burke (1-0) pitched $5^{1/3}$ innings of one-run, one-hit relief for the win, retiring

13 straight batters from the fourth to the eighth. Grant Taylor earned his second save in the series by working $1^{1/3}$ innings and wrapping up the combined four-hitter.

"I was able to settle in and find my groove," Burke said. "I've had openers before, but not in this situation, so I talked with a lot of guys. It's just normal baseball when you get into that game."

Cleveland, which scored the first two runs of the contest, pulled within 4-3 in the eighth on Jo Adell's triple off Taylor. Chase DeLauter chased Burke with a two-out single, then scored on Adell's drive high off the wall in center.

Guardians starter Gavin Williams struck out a career postseason-high 11 over five-plus innings, giving up two runs on four hits with three walks. The right-hander fell one shy of the franchise strikeout record by Charles Nagy against the Baltimore Orioles in the 1996 ALDS.

"I don't think there is any pressure on us," Williams said. "We know what we have to do and we're going to do it. I'd come out of the bullpen in Game 3, if I was allowed to."

In Game 1, Murakami hit a two-run homer and five Chicago pitchers combined for a three-hitter in a 3-0 victory.

PUZZLE POST 14 ■ TV LISTINGS 15

COMMENT&FEATURES

THE JERUSALEM POST • WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2026

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ZVIKA KLEIN

Editor-in-Chief

ALEX WINSTON, News Editor ETHAN FREEDMAN, Night Editor TAL SPUNGIN, Managing Editor

HERB KEINON and SETH J. FRANTZMAN, Senior Contributing Editors

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October 7 is not in the past, yet

Three years ago this morning, Israel woke up to the unimaginable.

1 Hamas terrorists had breached the Gaza border, overrun communities and army bases, attacked a music festival, murdered some 1,200 people, and dragged 251 hostages into Gaza – all within hours, as the country suffered its deadliest day since its founding.

Three years later, it can be tempting to think of October 7 as a dark moment that belongs to the past. But Israel has never really had the chance to put it there.

The war that began that morning has yet to be fully resolved. Hamas has not been fully disarmed, its future in Gaza remains unsettled, and the questions of who will govern Gaza and what will prevent another October 7 remain unanswered.

Beyond Gaza, Iran and its proxies remain a threat, and Israel continues to confront a region in which the possibility of another war is never far away.

For much of the country, then, the past three years have been less about moving on from October 7 than about living with its consequences – and with the questions it left behind.

But for many Israelis, October 7 is not simply something they have been living with. They are still living it.

For former hostages, freedom itself remains a daily reminder of what was taken from them. Emily Damari, abducted and wounded from her home in Kfar Aza, has spoken about how captivity changed her relationship with the most ordinary parts of life.

"Today, I open the fridge, and I say thank you," Damari said. "I drink cold water, and I say thank you."

Eli Sharabi spent 491 days in captivity after being taken from Kibbutz Be'eri. His wife, Lianne, and their daughters, Noiya and Yahel, were murdered on October 7. His brother Yossi was taken hostage and died in Gaza. After his release, Sharabi said he had learned in captivity "how precious every moment and every choice can be."

"I choose life," he said. "I choose to keep living fully, while carrying Lianne, Noiya, Yahel and Yossi with me in everything I do."

For Hagar Brodutch, who was abducted with her three children and a neighbor's daughter, returning to life has been a more complicated process than the word "freedom" might suggest. She has described the immense daily struggle, particularly for children, and recently began taking pastry-baking classes as a way to build something new.

"This is about much more than learning how to bake," she said. "It is about finding a new path, creating something with my own hands, and slowly building a future."

Then there are those for whom there can be no return to the life they had before October 7.

Michal Negri's son, Maj. (res.) Roee Negri, 28, was killed fighting Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Be'eri after spending the day rescuing civilians.

In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, Negri said that three years had done little to diminish the questions raised that morning. Above all, she wants those responsible for the failures leading up to October 7 to be held accountable through a state commission of inquiry.

“Everyone that was in the government, in any position of management, has to take responsibility and be inquired into, so we will be sure that it will never happen again,” she said.

"How can you be sure that it will not happen again if you don't inquire and ask questions?"

That question is larger than one bereaved mother.

Israel has changed dramatically since October 7, with the country's political and defense establishments learning painful lessons about its enemies, its defenses and its own institutions. But lessons have to be implemented, failures have to be examined, decisions have to be questioned – and responsibility has to be determined.

Three years later, Israel still has no state commission of inquiry into the worst national disaster in its history.

That means October 7 remains unfinished business. For many Israelis, October 7 is not three years ago – it is both the past and the present.

Ahead of the elections, Israelis must remember that our enemies aren't within, but those seeking to destroy us. May the memory of those killed on October 7, 2023, and since, be blessed.

---

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FRANCESCA ALBANESE IN THE SPANISH MEDIA:

When go-to experts don't know

FRANCESCA ALBANESE, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a news conference during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, earlier this year. (Denis Balibouse/Reuters)

• By MASHA GABRIEL

In May, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez welcomed UN envoy Francesca Albanese to La Moncloa, the prime minister's official residence, where he personally awarded her Spain's Order of Civil Merit, citing "her extensive work documenting and denouncing violations of international law in Gaza."

Just one day earlier, Sánchez had publicly defended Albanese, the UN's special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory, against US sanctions and called on the European Commission to activate mechanisms to counter them.

The sanctions followed Albanese's efforts to pressure the International Criminal Court to act against US and Israeli nationals.

While several Western officials called for Albanese's resignation given her record of antisemitic remarks, justification of terrorism, and extreme anti-Israel rhetoric, in Spain those same views found remarkably fertile political ground. During her visit, she met with government officials and enjoyed support from journalists and prominent figures representing Spain's cultural establishment.

That warm reception cannot be separated from the deferential treatment that a significant portion of the Spanish media has extended to Albanese. Long before Sánchez pinned a medal on her, state-owned outlets such as the EFE news agency and public broadcaster RTVE, along with private media such as El País, one of the most influential newspapers in the Spanish-speaking world, had already helped turn her into a familiar presence and a go-to voice on Israel and the Gaza Strip.

Her media presence has been anything but occasional. A CAMERA review using the news database LexisNexis found roughly 200 separate EFE stories mentioning Albanese between October 2024 and September 2026. El País, meanwhile, has devoted around 15 pieces to her, including interviews, profiles, and even opinion pieces, both by Albanese herself and by her supporters.

RTVE has also given her extensive airtime with interviews on both television and radio since 2024, and promoted her conclusions in prime-time programs such as En Portada, including a special, tellingly titled “Gaza: Genocide File.” During her May visit to Madrid, RTVE described her as “one of the most recognized and prominent voices” on Gaza, while its flagship evening newscast aired a segment entitled “Francesca Albanese: The Price of Speaking Out.”

In the May segment, RTVE portrayed Albanese primarily as a victim of US sanctions. El País, meanwhile, suggested that “Israel and its propaganda apparatus” appeared to “fear” the jurist, effectively casting Albanese as the target of an Israeli propaganda machine. As recently as September 7, EFE referred to her as an “expert” while reporting her claim that Israel might be removing rubble from Gaza to conceal evidence of “genocide.”

Repetition matters. When a source is incessantly quoted, interviewed, and introduced as an “expert,” her views gradually acquire the weight of an argument from authority. What she says matters not only because of the substance of the claim, but because she is the one making it.

Each appearance reinforces the next. Seen in that light, it becomes less surprising when journalists, cultural figures, and eventually the prime minister himself treat Albanese as someone whose expertise is beyond question.

And then there is everything those same media outlets do not tell their audiences.

On September 24, Albanese explained that Jews sent to the gas chambers had been called “the Muslims,” using this supposed fact to argue that antisemitism did not originally refer specifically to hatred of Jews, but rather to hostility toward Semitic peoples in general.

In Nazi camp jargon, “Muselmann” referred to prisoners so ravaged by starvation, disease, and exhaustion that they were approaching death. It did not mean they were Muslims. But the “expert” did not know that.

Nor did the conclusion Albanese built upon that mistake hold up. The term antisemitism, popularized by Wilhelm Marr in 1879, was coined specifically as a modern term for hostility toward Jews.

Albanese had constructed an entire historical argument around a word whose meaning she did not know. Her utterly false pronouncement was rather like discovering that someone who has spent years giving directions had confused north with south – and then drawn the map accordingly.

Eventually, she had to acknowledge the mistake. "I sincerely apologize," she wrote on X/Twitter, conceding both that she had misunderstood Muselmann and that she had wrongly inferred from it the meaning of the term antisemitism.

The latest Albanese antisemitism-related fiasco is pertinent information regarding a figure whom the media have spent years presenting as an Israel expert – someone whose every utterance many journalists deem newsworthy.

Yet, as of this writing, neither EFE, RTVE, nor El País has reported either the glaring error or the apology.

And this silence is hardly an isolated case. Anyone whose knowledge of Albanese comes primarily through these outlets would be unlikely to get a complete picture of the woman who once wrote that the United States was “subjugated by the Jewish lobby,” or who said that the victims of October 7 were killed “in response to Israel’s oppression,” and not because Palestinian terrorists regard all associated with the Jewish state as fair targets. Nor would that audience necessarily learn about other episodes that have led to accusations of antisemitism.

CAMERA has documented, for example, how Albanese promoted an event purporting to explain what is and is not antisemitic, where one of the “experts” was Richard Falk, who had endorsed a book by Gilad Atzmon, known for Holocaust denial and antisemitic views.

And therein lies the problem. Media outlets are free to turn to Albanese as often as they see fit. But after spending years propping her up as a supposedly trusted source, information that allows readers to judge how much that trust is warranted should also be part of the picture.

The writer is the manager of CAMERA Español, the Spanish media team of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis.

The staring face of Europe

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By SHARON PARDO

With the third anniversary of October 7, the events of that day are acquiring another layer of meaning. October 7 can become compressed into a date, and the date into a chronological marker: what happened immediately before Gaza.

But for Israelis, October 7 is not merely what came before Gaza, just as Gaza cannot be reduced to what came after October 7.

I found myself thinking about this in an unexpected place: a bookstore in Braga, Portugal.

Fernando Pessoa once imagined Europe as a human body. In “The Field of the Castles,” Portugal’s great modern poet describes the continent reclining on its elbows. One elbow is Italy. The other is England. Europe looks outward through Greek eyes. But the face doing the looking is Portugal.

"Enigmatic and fateful she stares," Pessoa writes in Richard Zenith's translation, "Out West, to the future of the past."

Then comes the final line: "The starting face is Portugal."

In that Portuguese bookstore, I wondered what Europe's staring face now sees when it looks toward Israel.

Before me was a table of books about Israel, the Palestinians, and Gaza, most in Portuguese translation. Each could be judged on its own merits. Together, however, they told a story.

There was Omer Bartov asking what had gone wrong with his country, Ilan Pappé's Israel vs Palestina (A Very Short History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict), Raja Shehadeh's What Does Israel Fear from Palestine?, and Enzo Traverso's Gaza Faces History.

Alexandra Lucas Coelho's Gaza Está em Toda a Parte ("Gaza Is Everywhere") stood there in Portuguese, alongside Joe Sacco's War on Gaza and Michael

Scott-Baumann's general history Palestinians and Israelis.

There is nothing illegitimate about these books. Palestinian accounts belong on European bookshelves. So does criticism of Israel.

What interested me was the collection. A reader encountered Israel mainly through conflict, accusation, and catastrophe. Palestinian perspectives were abundant. The two authors born in Israel, Bartov and Pappé, were deeply critical of their country. Gaza dominated the visual landscape.

What was harder to see was October 7 as an event in its own right.

Where were the communities of southern Israel, the Nova music festival, the hostages, and their families? Where was Hamas? Where was the vulnerability October 7 implanted in Israeli political consciousness?

The point is not that every bookstore must achieve ideological balance. Nor is one table in Braga a verdict on Europe. But an arrangement shapes what a passerby sees first. Accumulation creates meaning. When books selected for attention point predominantly in one direction, curation becomes part of the argument.

Then, close to the center of the table, my eyes stopped on one word.

Holocaustos.

The book was Gilles Kepel's Holocausts: Israel, Gaza and the War Against the West. Kepel is not simply equating Gaza with the Nazi Holocaust. His argument encompasses both the Hamas massacres of October 7 and the war in Gaza that followed.

October 7 was not wholly absent. Kepel's book treats it, but under a word that reframed it before the reader met it as an event in its own right.

To the left was Bartov's book. The American edition, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, is titled Israel: What Went Wrong? Its front cover contains no reference to the Holocaust. The Portuguese edition by Ideias de Ler asks instead, O que correu mal com o meu país?

("What Went Wrong with My Country?"), with a subtitle: "Entre a memória do Holocausto e a violência do presente" ("Between the memory of the Holocaust and the violence of the present").

Bartov is a historian of the Holocaust, and Holocaust memory is central to his analysis of Israel, so the subtitle reflects the book. But the Portuguese edition carries the Holocaust on its front cover, where the American edition does not.

The Holocaust, therefore, surfaced twice on this table, in different books and for different reasons. Nothing placed an equal sign between Gaza and Auschwitz. Kepel and Bartov are not making the same argument.

But cultural associations rarely need an equal sign. Few words in Europe carry greater weight than Holocaust.

For decades, the Holocaust occupied a distinctive place in Europe's relationship with Israel. Zionism preceded Auschwitz by decades. Yet the murder of six million Jews on European soil inevitably shaped that postwar relationship.

The Holocaust also became part of the vocabulary through which Europe came to understand itself. Never Again acquired a universal meaning, expressing an obligation to resist persecution, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

There is something essential in that universalization. Jewish historical memory cannot demand indifference to Palestinian suffering. October 7 cannot provide Israel with immunity from moral judgment, political criticism, or international law.

But universal lessons depend on preserving the particular.

If October 7 survives chiefly as the beginning of what came afterward, something has been lost. Its victims become characters in another narrative. The same is true in reverse. Palestinian deaths and destruction in Gaza cannot be treated merely as an appendix to October 7.

The challenge is to hold both without allowing either to subsume the other.

There is a profound difference between allowing the Holocaust to sharpen our sensitivity to human anguish and making it the template through which the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is understood. The first draws a universal moral responsibility from the past. The second risks merging radically different histories.

Pessoa's phrase, "the future of the past," suddenly seemed less strange.

Europe's catastrophes do not remain safely behind it. They travel forward and shape how Europeans understand wars generations later. Sometimes this produces empathy and insight. Sometimes it obscures as much as it reveals.

Israel occupies an unusual place within this inheritance. It is a Middle Eastern country deeply entangled with Europe. Europe looks at Israel and sees another state, but also Jews, Auschwitz, nationalism, colonialism, human rights, and its own unresolved arguments about power and responsibility.

The small table in Braga captured that entanglement.

As the third anniversary of October 7 approaches, the question is not which tragedy Europe should recognize. Acknowledging October 7 cannot mean blindness to Gaza. Confronting Gaza cannot make October 7 a footnote. And the Holocaust cannot make every contemporary catastrophe an echo of Auschwitz.

These histories touch one another. They do not become the same story.

Pessoa imagined Portugal as Europe's face, staring enigmatically toward “the future of the past.” Europe still carries its past in its gaze. When it looks at Israel through its darkest chapter, it must take care that what came before illuminates what it sees rather than rearranges what it remembers.

The staring face is still Portugal.

The writer is a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, and a professor of European studies and international relations in the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

Your smile stays with us

ILAN AND Clara Hamami are seen holding a picture of their son, Asaf. (Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)

CLARA and Ilan Hamami stand alongside their son, Asaf, before his death on October 7, 2023. (Hamami family)

• By CLARA HAMAMI

Three years, my Asaf. My beloved son. Three years have passed - yet I wake up this morning as if time had stood still.

I return to that terrible morning, minute by minute.

To the rockets piercing the sky, to the sirens shattering the silence, and to your calming voice – a voice that was also that of a leader, a steady, clear commander's voice – leading even in moments of truth and in the direst times, taking responsibility, and showing the way.

And above all, to your voice, my beloved son, Col. Asaf Hamami, commander of the Southern Brigade.

I hear you again over the radio: "Scramble the emergency standby squads, tanks, and vehicles. Shift to full combat footing. We are at war." That was the moment you realized the country was at war. And I am going through it all with you, with Tomer and Kiril, your command team, minute by minute. Hearing your orders.

The attempt to mobilize forces, the speed with which you grasped that this event was far greater than anything we had ever known.

You leave the base with your team, heading into battle. A few against many. A commander and heroic fighters facing down dozens of terrorists.

Right up to the moment you were critically wounded. Up to the moment you fell

You “returned” home wrapped in the Israeli flag, after 758 days, back to the homeland you loved so dearly.

My beloved, beautiful son, Assaf. In your final moments... I was not there.

I was not by your side like a mother lioness.

I could not cradle you in my arms, hold you tight, rest your head against my heart, and whisper with a mother's warmth: "Mommy is here, my Asaf. Everything is fine; I'm with you."

And I cannot stop asking myself: What did you feel in those moments? What were you thinking about?

Who were you thinking of?

Did you see me and Dad? Did you see your younger brother, Eitan, whom you loved so dearly and always worried about?

Did you think of the warm home you built, the woman you loved, and your children, beloved Ella, Alon, and Arbel, of whom you spoke with a face lit up by a wide, happy smile? Alon – who was with you just hours earlier on the holiday eve, and who stayed behind in the room at the base when you went off to fight – did you think of him in those moments?

What images flashed through your mind in those final moments?

And what passed through your heart the moment your beautiful eyes closed forever?

No one can give me the answers to these questions anymore.

But one thing I know: Your smile didn't stop at that moment. The smile that always lit up your beautiful face lives on within us.

It continues to be with me, with Dad, with your children, with the family, with your friends, and with everyone who had the privilege of knowing you.

I can no longer meet your beautiful, radiant eyes, but the light within them can never be extinguished.

SINCE LAST week, I have been wandering aimlessly.

My stomach churns. My heart knows this day is coming.

Dad and I needed to be close to you. We drove to visit you at your new home, your permanent home at Kiryat Shaul. We bought flowers, washed and cleaned the site, and lit a candle.

A new home, one I never imagined would be the place where we'd be with you. The longing tears at my heart all over again.

I open your WhatsApp messages and read them once more:

"Come visit us at home." "Come over for dinner." "Love you."

My heart and mind still refuse to accept this new reality.

How is it possible that your last messages spoke of home, of a visit, of dinner, yet the only visits left for us with you are at Kiryat Shaul?

I stand before you, cradling your beautiful head against the headstone, imagining the tight hugs I used to shower you with whenever we met. For a mother keeps hugging her son even when her hands can no longer touch him.

On Simchat Torah, Ella, Alon, and Arbel, your children and our beloved grandchildren, joined us for dinner, and my heart couldn't help drifting back exactly three years.

On October 6, 2023, the eve of Simchat Torah, Alon was with you at the base.

I can picture it in my mind.

You, a father overjoyed, and Alon, your son, who so wanted to spend time with you at the base, playing soccer.

Alon is wearing you out, and you are absolutely delighted. Smiling. Beaming with happiness.

The simple happiness of father and son, just the two of you, moments you shared before the rest of the family was set to join you the next day.

And today, I look at your three children and think of how proud you would have been of them.

How much more you would have wanted to see. How many more moments you were meant to share. How much life still lay ahead of you.

There is something unfathomable about this intersection of holidays and joy with pain and bereavement.

How does Simchat Torah, a festival of joy, of Torah, of home, of family, become mingled with the memory of the day that terrible disas-

ter befell us?

How can one process the magnitude of this tragedy, day after day, year after year, without pausing for a moment to ask: What happened to us?

And not just: What happened at the border fence?

Not just: What happened that morning?

What happened to us as a society? What happened to us as a people?

How did we reach a point where the hatred among us became so deep? In the months leading up to October 7, we witnessed a fractured society – arguments turning into battles, words into vitriol, and disagreements into hatred.

And then came that morning.

In an instant, our disputes paled in comparison to an enemy intent on killing, abducting, and destroying.

Thousands of bloodthirsty terrorists breached the border.

Communities were attacked. Civilians were massacred. Soldiers fell.

And you, my Asaf, went out to defend.

You didn't ask who was Right or Left. You didn't ask who was for or against. You went out to defend human beings. To defend the residents of the Gaza border area. To defend the country.

Three years later, I believe we owe ourselves one thing above all else: The truth.

Not the truth of the coalition.

Not the truth of the opposition.

The truth of a people.

I hear the debate over which committee will conduct the inquiry, who will appoint it, who will head it, and who its members will be.

And I say: Enough arguing. Just start the investigation.

A state commission of inquiry, a national commission, or any other mechanism – the main thing is that it be established and be independent, professional, and, above all, accepted by everyone – or at least by the broadest possible segments of the public.

It is important to me that there be a commission in which this wounded nation can place its trust. One that bereaved families can trust, knowing it was not set up to shield any particular side. One that investigates everyone; that asks all the questions; that reaches every corner, even those places no one wants to go.

Who knew? Who didn't know? Who raised the alarm? Who didn't listen? What failed? Who bore the responsibility?

And above all, what must we, as a society, change so that such a disaster can never happen again?

We do not seek revenge. We seek the truth.

We do not ask for a committee that serves a faction. We ask for one that serves the state.

Because we deserve answers; not for the sake of revenge; not to single out culprits in advance, simply to understand.

And when someone is found responsible, let that responsibility be examined through the proper mechanisms of a well-functioning state, in accordance with the law.

Because without truth, there is no healing.

And without healing, the wound remains open.

I do not want us to remain a country where every disaster immediately turns into yet another war among ourselves.

I want us to finally learn to listen to one another. To argue without hating. To criticize without humiliating. To disagree without tearing each other apart.

To be strong without losing our humanity.

Perhaps this is one of the things you, my Asaf, would have asked of us.

Because you believed in people.

You saw what others did not see.

You listened.

You gave.

You took action.

Throughout your life, you taught – even without grand speeches – that one can be a great person without needing to be greater than others. And today, three years later, perhaps this is our greatest test:

Not only to defeat the enemy from without but to succeed in remaining one people from within.

For in the end – after all the arguments, all the factions, and all the headlines – we are left with one another. And if, after the heavy and terrible price we have paid, we do not understand this: When will we?

My dear Asaf,

Three years.

Three years that you have been so deeply missed, yet so present in our lives.

Today, I no longer ask how one goes on living without you. I know.

We go on with you.

In every child who knows your story. In every value we pass on. In every person we truly see. In every act of giving.

Every time we choose unity over hatred. Every time we take action instead of just talking.

Your path was cut short in battle on that cursed day, but your path did not end.

We will carry it forward.

And I promise you, my beloved son: We will do everything to ensure that life in this country is worthy of the price you – and so many of our sons and daughters – paid for it.

YOU ARE NOT merely a story of October 7.

You are a person. You are a son. You are a father. You are a commander. You are a brother. You are a friend. You are loved.

And above all, you are my Asaf.

Three years. I miss you with every breath. And yet, amid all the pain, I see your smile. That same beautiful, warm, mischievous, radiant smile.

And today, your handsome face and the name Asaf Hamami are with us all across the country – on stickers, flags, walls, signs, classrooms, and in so many places where people have chosen to keep your presence and your path alive.

Your smile continues to be with me, and it is no longer just mine.

It is everywhere in the country.

It accompanies people who never had the chance to know you.

There is something captivating about it, just like your quiet leadership:

Less talking, more action. At eye level.

With a hug full of meaning, and with a goodness that was always directed toward others.

So simple. So genuine. So you.

But home is where we still meet. Your photo is on the fridge; you are waiting for me every morning. We “meet” in the kitchen over the morning coffee you loved so much.

And at the front door, as we leave, we are met by your smiling face and your blessing for the journey ahead.

And when we return, I say - as if you were here: "Asaf, we're home."

For even within our home, you are still a part of our lives.

Your eyes have closed forever, but your smile stays with us, and your presence walks beside us.

And I promise you, my beautiful, beloved boy, Mom is here. Just as I always was. And you will always be here with us because there is no love in the world like a mother's love.

The writer is the mother of Col. Asaf Hamami, the highest-ranked IDF soldier killed on October 7, 2023.

Israel's fourth founding

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- By NOAH FARKAS

This August in Tel Aviv, I joined a panel at CommunityO, a gathering of young Israeli founders. Many had spent hundreds of days on reserve duty since October 7. They were tired but steadfast, aware that the future of their country was in their hands. They came home asking a question I had not heard them ask before: "What kind of state is most worthy of our protection?"

It is a founder's question. Three years ago, on Simchat Torah, Hamas terrorists murdered more than 1,200 people in Israel and took 251 hostages into Gaza. Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose son Hersh was murdered in captivity, has said the day split time into a “before” and an “after.” Today, a new generation is asking what “after” should be.

Nations are not founded once. Israel's purpose, Jewish sovereignty, has not changed since 1948. But the assumptions about how to secure it, and how to build a nation around it, change with each era, and each time an era's assumptions collapse, Israel is remade.

Israel is now entering its fourth founding, a season in which old assumptions give way to new geopolitical, social, and economic realities, and in which our people decide again who it is and what it is for. Never has so much been at stake in the Diaspora-Israel relationship.

That, too, is being reexamined and reinvented.

The first founding came in 1948, when the promise of European emancipation died. For generations, Europe's Jews had been told that citizenship would make them safe. The Holocaust broke that promise, and the state that rose from it was built from almost nothing: roads, housing, power lines, and hospitals for refugees streaming in from Europe and the Middle East.

The United Jewish Appeal's 1948 "Year of Destiny" campaign raised more than \$150 million from over a million donors, then the largest campaign in the history of private philanthropy.

In 1950, David Ben-Gurion and the American Jewish Committee's Jacob Blaustein struck a bargain that would define the relationship for decades: Israel would make no political claim on American Jews, and American Jews would not interfere in Israel's domestic affairs, but the money and political support would keep coming.

The deal rested on an older Zionist conviction, shlilat hagolah, the negation of the Diaspora, which held that Jewish life outside Israel was a lesser form of Jewish life. American Jews were welcomed as donors and advocates, never as partners.

The second founding came in 1967, when Jewish powerlessness died in six days. Israel's early years had rested on the premise that Jewish survival was fragile and depended on the pity of others. The victory turned that fear into pride and power.

Israel refounded its sense of self: posters of Moshe Dayan adorned the bedrooms of Jewish children, and the Jewish state moved to the center of global Jewish life. But pride is a feeling, not a voice. That year, 94% of Israelis surveyed said Jews abroad must support the state, while only 43% thought they should have an opinion about its internal affairs.

The third founding came in 1985, when the socialist economy died. The pioneers' utopia had begun to crack after 1967, but it took inflation of roughly $445\%$ to bury it. A painful stabilization plan, with deep budget cuts, wage and price controls and a sharp devaluation, cleared the ground for the Start-Up Nation: inflation fell below $20\%$ , and per capita output was growing about $4\%$ a year by the early 1990s.

Seventy-eight years after the British Mandate ended, the Jewish state held \$235 billion in foreign reserves, more than the empire that once governed it. A country that had survived on the generosity of others could now stand on its own, and the negation of the Diaspora seemed nearly complete.

Yet the old bargain, money without a voice, outlived the need for the money. In 2016, after years of negotiation, the government approved a pluralistic prayer space at the Western Wall, with a council that would have given Reform and Conservative leaders a role in running it. In 2017, under pressure from its ultra-Orthodox coalition partners, it froze the deal, and many American Jews felt insulted and abandoned. A voice granted could be withdrawn. It would take a catastrophe to change the terms.

The fourth founding begins with what died on October 7: the idea that the state alone could keep Israelis safe. The onslaught did more than murder and kidnap; it forced a Jewish reckoning.

Israelis, shocked by the establishment's failure to detect the threat and to protect them, lost trust in their government and felt that the state had broken its covenantal promise to prevent the mass murder of Jews.

Civilians rushed in where the government could not, caring for devastated communities in the Gaza border region and the North. New kinds of philanthropy emerged because Israelis would not wait for the government to act.

In the first weeks of the war, they raised hundreds of millions of shekels, much of it in small gifts, and roughly half of all Israeli adults volunteered. Last year alone, Israeli donors put \$140m. into Israel's first donor-advised fund.

When I met with Tali Nir, CEO of

121, a nonprofit shaping social policy in Israel, she acknowledged a sea change happening in Israeli society. The generations before hers built the essential infrastructure of the state: its roads, its army, its politics. Her generation's job is to build the society. Social change, she said, is the next wave of Zionism.

The Israelis of October 8 are the new “New Jew”: resourceful and resilient, and they take care of their own. They have also learned that their bond with American Jews is indelible and invaluable for both of our futures.

The grand bargain of the past is being renegotiated. Israelis no longer negate the Diaspora; they embrace it. And North American Jews must adjust to a new power dynamic in the relationship: Israel no longer needs patrons. It needs partners.

Some will say talk of partnership is premature, with the North and South still rebuilding, an economy strained by war, and a military that leans on American support. But Israel's survival no longer depends on American Jewish charity, and what kind of society it becomes may depend on whether Israelis and American Jews build it together.

More than a century ago, Ahad Ha'am hoped that a renewed Jewish culture in Palestine would one day produce a state that was "not merely a state of the Jews, but a really Jewish state." That is our work now: the civic infrastructure of a society that is democratic, pluralistic, and compassionate.

Israelis know they cannot build it alone. Many I met see something to learn from more than three and a half centuries of Jewish life in America: our institutions, our philanthropy, our pluralistic Judaism. We have at least as much to learn from them about resilience, courage and service.

Partnership will make uncomfortable demands and require concessions from both parties. American Jews must invest alongside Israelis rather than on their behalf, and let Israelis set the priorities.

Both parties will have to exercise humility; we are each other's teachers, and each other's students. We both have hard things to say to one another about what we think is best for the Jewish future. In this, we are joint stakeholders, neither silent donors nor distant critics.

"Hatikvah" sings of "the hope of two thousand years." The first founding gave the Jewish people a state. The second gave us pride, and the third gave Israel prosperity. The fourth can give us a society worthy of that state, and a bond across oceans built on choice rather than need. After so much shared grief, the future most worth building is the one Israelis and Diaspora Jews build together.

The writer is president and CEO of the Jewish Federation Los Angeles.

Between flydubai and October 7

PRIME MINISTER Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Yaniv Hayoun; Or Fradilov; Dr. Shota Musayev, and his wife, Sigalit, who helped save the flydubai flight from the attempted hijacking, last week. (Amos Ben Gershon/GPO/Handout via Reuters)

\- By OZ BIN NUN

Everyone was surprised when airplane hijackings returned to our lives. No one was surprised to learn that the people who foiled the hijacking were Israelis who lunged at once to confront the first officer in the cockpit.

That absence of surprise is rooted in the Israeli DNA, which carries within it a readiness to fight. Not out of a thirst for blood, but as a deep expression of responsibility toward the people around you and a willingness to risk your own life against anyone who threatens you and your community.

This incident takes place precisely in the middle of a barren and futile controversy over a single question: was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed before the war?

On the Left, they are certain: "Of course, he knew, and he did not lift a finger."

On the Right, they cry out: "If only they had woken him, everything would have looked different."

The argument is empty. It is meaningless because it tries to force a narrow legal logic onto reality, hanging everything on a direct causal chain running from protocols, hours of sleep, and intelligence reports to the terrible outcome. It is the product of an ancient and basic logic that we lost somewhere along the way.

To understand how warped and destructive this pedantic sifting of details is, this effort to prove guilt or to wash it away, picture the following: You left the children with a babysitter and went out to a movie. When you came home, you found the children slaughtered in the house.

It may well be that this babysitter could not have prevented a thing. It may be that no other person in their place would have managed to avert the decree. And still, that particular babysitter will carry the full weight of it, the fact that the horror took place on their watch, until their last day.

If they trade that paralyzing responsibility, that unbearable weight, for technical questions, for hairsplitting about procedures and calculations of circumstance, they will be seen, and rightly so, as a monstrous human being, someone without humanity.

The babysitter example is not quite precise. Netanyahu did not happen to be minding the children at the wrong time and the wrong place. He is a leader who, on the strength of his talent and his charisma, was handed the roles of building manager, architect, and engineer all at once.

In the updated image, the children were killed when part of the structure collapsed. This building manager, architect, and engineer can complain from here to eternity that the residents' committee (in Israeli apartment buildings, an elected committee of tenants that controls the building's budget and maintenance decisions) tied his hands, but he still owes answers: how does 20 years of having his hands tied release him from responsibility, and why is the fact that he was unaware of the severe water damage in the infrastructure supposed to lift that responsibility from his shoulders?

But long before any of that, there has to be crushing guilt. Because the children died, on his watch.

This is exactly the logic that the philosopher Bernard Williams uses in his book Shame and Necessity. Williams shows how the modern conception shrank the idea of responsibility down to pure legal guilt: for someone to bear responsibility, we now demand a proven causal link, full control, and clear intent. And if the right boxes were checked, or the hour was simply too late, the responsibility evaporates.

Among the ancient Greeks, by contrast, the view was far more realistic and clear-eyed. Oedipus had no capacity whatsoever to resist his fate, which was sealed before he was born. He did not know the facts, yet it never occurred to him to claim that no one had woken him in time, and so to disown the catastrophe that happened on his watch. He paid the full price for what he had done, because in a chaotic world the sheer rush of events is not a writ of exemption from responsibility but an uncompromising demand to take it on.

Using today's endless stream of information to maneuver, to hurl blame or to dodge it, dismantles the most basic idea of leadership. But it also threatens something more important: the Israeli DNA.

This readiness to fight, to sacrifice, and to take responsibility for another person is a kind of miracle, but it is also a distinct psychosocial phenomenon that has been studied and decoded in depth.

In their paper “Transcultural pathways to the will to fight,” social psychologist Ángel Gómez and his colleagues show how the great powers failed again and again – in Vietnam, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and nearly in Ukraine, when they focused on overwhelming material superiority and ignored the will to fight, that intangible factor mistakenly treated as impossible to measure.

Drawing on 31 studies among thousands of fighters and civilians, Gómez demonstrated that the willingness to sacrifice one's life rests on a clear scientific chain: identity fusion, the sense of being at one with the collective, which produces a perception of spiritual strength that outweighs the physical balance of forces, and which is translated into action through unshakable trust in one's own people.

The survival of the Zionist enterprise is not magic. It is the fruit of those three components existing here at a level unmatched anywhere in the Western world. The present tragedy is that in the name of political survival, flight from responsibility, and a technical, alienating legal discourse, we work our own hands to shatter those very components.

We erode identity fusion through internal incitement; we hollow out the spiritual strength through discrimination and cynicism toward the value of service, and we collapse the basic trust that allows a person to risk his life for the collective. No nation can survive over time when that foundation is coming apart from within.

Political discourse is supposed to be about advancing policy. But in the coming years, anyone prepared to push aside, to bracket, or to walk right over the communities that serve in Israel, simply because advancing their own policy is the most critical thing of all, has to take one thing into account: we have reached a watershed.

We have reached a tangible danger to the very existence of the most basic core that allows the Zionist enterprise to exist. It may be a decision that makes sense in short-term political terms, but its meaning is clear: to seize the wheel on deck, they are willing to wreck the engine and breach the hull.

What is at stake in the coming years is not only the physical survival of the State of Israel against enormous challenges, but the preservation of our most basic DNA: responsibility, service, and loyalty. These must be fought for and guarded with everything we have, before we find ourselves with a generation that does not prevent planes from crashing, because that, after all, is not their responsibility.

The writer is the CEO of the Ribo Center.

THREE YEARS SINCE OCTOBER 7:

Zionism is more relevant than ever

• By SHIMON REFAELI

The events of the Hamas-led invasion and massacres on October 7, 2023, and the war that followed, brought fundamental questions back to the center of Israeli discourse – questions that for years had seemed to have already been settled.

What is the role of the State of Israel in the life of the Jewish people? To what extent can the Jewish people rely on the international community when it comes to matters concerning their security? And what remains of Zionism in an era in which Israel is a strong, prosperous state integrated into the international system?

Three years after that morning, it has become clear that Zionism, which has sometimes been portrayed as an idea belonging primarily to the era of state-building and pioneering, is not merely a chapter in the history of the State of Israel. It continues to provide an answer to fundamental questions concerning the condition of the Jewish people in the 21st century as well.

Political Zionism was not born merely out of an aspiration to establish a Jewish state. It emerged from a historical diagnosis of the condition of the Jews as a people. Emancipation in Europe granted Jews civil rights; opened to them the gates of universities, the liberal professions, and high society; and gave rise to the hope that full integration into the broader society would gradually resolve the “Jewish Question.”

Yet Zionist thinkers understood that legal equality, economic success, and social acceptance do not necessarily eliminate the political vulnerability of a minority that ultimately depends on the protection of others.

As the years passed, it was precisely the success of the State of Israel that, to some extent, diminished the sense of urgency surrounding the idea that had led to its establishment. Israel became a regional military, economic, and technological power, while Jewish communities in the West integrated into society, academia, the economy, and politics to an unprecedented degree.

After World War II, an international system also emerged that placed, at least rhetorically, human rights, the protection of minorities, and the prevention of genocide at its center.

Under these conditions, it was easy to assume that Jewish history had entered a new era, and that at least some of the warnings on which Zionism had been founded had lost their relevance.

October 7 challenged that assumption.

The images of families hiding for hours in their homes, civilians fleeing for their lives, and Jewish communities being attacked by terrorists brought back into Israeli consciousness scenes that seemed to belong to other chapters of our history.

However, the conclusion is not that Zionism failed. On the contrary. The events demonstrated precisely the profound difference between the condition of the Jewish people today and their condition throughout most of history.

ZIONISM DID not promise that Jews would not be attacked. It sought to ensure that when they were attacked, they would not be helpless.

This is perhaps the deepest expression of the meaning of Jewish sovereignty. When communities in Israel were attacked, there was no need to wait for the mercy of a foreign ruler, hope that another government would send forces to defend the Jews, or rely on the willingness of the international community to intervene.

The State of Israel, despite the terrible failure of that morning, was able to mobilize hundreds of thousands of soldiers and reservists, fight back, and defend its citizens. For centuries, that possibility was simply unavailable to the Jewish people.

Yet October 7 and the period that followed also raised another question concerning the status of Jews in the Western world. Many Jews, both in Israel and in the Diaspora, were shocked not only by the scale of the attack but also by the responses to it.

At some of the most prestigious universities in the West, the massacre was quickly translated into familiar ideological frameworks of “oppressors” and “oppressed,” “colonialists” and “indigenous peoples.” Instead of beginning with the facts and the moral responsibility of those who carried out the massacre, some rushed to interpret the events through theoretical frameworks in which the identities of victim and aggressor are almost predetermined.

The US congressional hearing in which the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and MIT were required to answer questions concerning calls for the genocide of Jews on their campuses became, for many, a symbol of a deeper crisis. Institutions accustomed to speaking with great confidence about justice, equality, and the protection of minorities suddenly appeared hesitant precisely when Jews were the targets of threats.

For many Diaspora Jews, this was a deeply unsettling experience. Those who believed that their full integration into Western societies had made their Jewishness a secondary component of their identity discovered that, in the eyes of parts of the societies around them, Jewish identity still carries profound political and social significance.

Not because their American, British, or French identities are not genuine, but because Jewish history teaches that Jewish identity is not always something the individual alone can determine the significance of, in the eyes of those around them.

The international arena also exposed the limitations of relying on external institutions. Shortly after the massacres, resolutions were adopted at the United Nations calling for a ceasefire without including an explicit condemnation of Hamas. UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated that the Hamas attack “did not happen in a vacuum.”

Proceedings in international courts placed Israel at the center of some of the most serious accusations in international law, while organizations responsible for defending women's rights struggled for a considerable period to give adequate expression to the evidence of sexual violence committed during the Hamas-led attacks.

THE CUMULATIVE picture recalls a truth that Zionism understood more than a century ago: the international community can be a partner, a friend, and an ally, but Israel cannot entrust its existential security to it. This was one of the fundamental principles of political Zionism, and since October 7 it has taken on renewed significance.

For generations, the Jewish people witnessed the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires, often without having any meaningful ability to influence the forces that determined their fate. They survived, and at times even prospered, but time and again it became clear how fragile their achievements could be when their security depended on the goodwill of others.

The State of Israel changed that equation. It does not guarantee that the Jewish people will not be attacked, that antisemitism will disappear, or that the world will always stand by their side. It gives them something more fundamental: the ability to act, defend themselves, and take responsibility for their future.

Three years after October 7, this is perhaps the most important Zionist lesson: the principle that the Jewish people are no longer mere spectators in their own history. Responsibility for our fate rests, first and foremost, in our own hands.

The writer is the deputy chairman of the Institute for Security Policy of the Israel Defense and Security Forum.

Oct. 7 NAZA: Hamas's profit-and-loss statement

• By SAGIV STEINBERG

On August 3, Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas's political bureau, sat across from Piers Morgan for a half-hour interview. Most viewers remember the denial. Hamad said he was "100%" confident that Hamas never committed crimes against civilians, and that whatever happened at the Nova music festival, in the kibbutzim, and in the homes set on fire was, at most, a "mistake" by individuals.

The denial was shocking, and rightly so. It was also the predictable part of the interview. The important part came some 15 minutes later, when Morgan asked whether October 7 had been a strategic failure, given what it brought down on Gaza.

Hamad conceded that “we paid a big price” and moved straight to the profit column. Israel is isolated. Its prime minister is wanted by the International Criminal Court. And, in his words, “All the world now, they put the Palestinian cause on the table.”

Before October 7, he said, there were only Security Council meetings and Arab statements that changed nothing on the ground. Now there are “strategic achievements.” He closed the answer by saying Hamas had not changed.

This was a profit-and-loss statement, delivered by one of the people who signed off on the investment.

---

The massacre dividend

For Hamas, the massacre was an investment. The killing, the rape, and the abductions were meant to provoke a harsh Israeli response, the images from Gaza that followed, and the international pressure those images would generate. Call it the massacre dividend: the political return a terrorist organization extracts from its own atrocity once the world translates it into urgency to “solve the issue.”

Gazans paid the price. Hamad himself left the Gaza Strip before October 7 and never went back, as he acknowledged in the same interview. The dividend is being collected in European capitals, and Washington may be next.

Whoever rewards a massacre with statehood is inviting the next one, and not only in Israel. Paris and London are within range as well.

---

The Israeli wall

On the Israeli side, the picture is the reverse. The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs has measured public opinion seven consecutive times over 30 months. Opposition to a Palestinian state has held steady at 64% to 68% of the public, and at 75% among Jewish respondents in the latest wave. Total support, including conditional support tied to recognition and demilitarization, has not exceeded 25% in any survey.

One figure is rising sharply. Concern about an October 7-style attack from Judea and Samaria climbed from 62% in February 2025 to 77% in September 2026. Even among left-wing respondents, a majority now shares that concern.

A poll captures attitudes at a given moment and cannot predict how the public will respond to sustained pressure. But three years on, this is no longer post-traumatic shock. Israelis understood Hamad's sentence better than most of the West: a state established now would be credited to the massacre.

---

Pressure from outside

Europe reads the same map and draws the opposite conclusion. In September 2025, the European Commission proposed suspending part of Israel's trade preferences under the EU-Israel Association Agreement. The proposal stalled, and Spain's attempt to revive it in spring 2026 ran into broad opposition. Yet the economic lever is now legitimate in Brussels, and it has advanced alongside a wave of European recognitions of a Palestinian state. All this on a continent where the Islamist voice, in the street and at the ballot box, grows louder every year.

In Washington, the process is slower, but it cuts across party lines. If Democrats retake Congress in November's midterms, the wing that wants to condition aid to Israel and impose sanctions will gain committees, budgets, and a platform.

And on the same Morgan episode, Joe Kent, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, called for ending American funding of Israel and spoke of a new political movement on the Right. By 2028, the issue will be on every candidate's desk.

Hamad was right about one thing: the issue is back on the table. The question is who will pay for it, the slaughtered or the slaughterers.

---

What is required

For anyone who still believes a Palestinian state would end the conflict, Hamad supplied the answer in the same interview. When Morgan told him he supports a two-state solution and a full Palestinian state, Hamad shot back: "So why should Israel exist?"

At the end of the interview, when asked three times for a yes or no on whether he still believes Israel should be annihilated, he would not say no. Instead, he called Israel “a big burden on the shoulder of the world” and said the world “should reconsider the existence of Israel.”

For Hamas, a Palestinian state is a stage. The destination has not moved.

Jerusalem must stop treating recognitions of a Palestinian state as symbolic gestures, and should put Hamad's words before every international forum: Hamas itself is declaring that recognition is a reward for October 7. European capitals must understand that every economic measure against Israel tied to the demand for statehood is recorded in Gaza as a return on the investment.

In Washington, in both camps, anyone who talks about sanctions should answer one question: How much is he willing to pay an organization that has openly admitted the massacre was worth it?

The writer is the communication director of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA) and a former senior editor in Israeli and international media.

Spain approves housing decrees that triggered snap election

SPAIN'S PRIME MINISTER Pedro Sanchez speaks at a press conference at Moncloa Palace in Madrid yesterday. (Juan Medina/Reuters)

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's government on Tuesday approved two housing decrees whose rejection by parliament last week prompted Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to call a snap election.

The measures, which include rent caps, a temporary ban on evictions, and limits on corporate purchases of residential property, were “based on plain common sense,” Sanchez said in a press conference, arguing that opinion surveys showed the public was broadly in favor of intervention in the property market.

"They protect the most vulnerable and, in some way, begin to bring order to what is currently a deeply dysfunctional market that does not operate according to the logic of supply and demand because of rampant speculation," he said.

Sanchez said on Monday he was bringing forward an election previously scheduled for 2027 because failing to garner enough support for his proposals to address a housing crisis made him realize he needed more seats in parliament.

Calling the election, on November 29, has allowed Sanchez to bring in the new rules with the support of a smaller caretaker body.

The measures will come into effect temporarily when the decree is published in the official state gazette, but must then be sent for approval by the caretaker lawmakers who remain in place after parliament was dissolved, Sanchez said.

The standing body of 69 members, when including lower house speaker Francina Armengol from Sanchez's Socialist Party, has a slim majority in favor of the measures, according to state broadcaster TVE.

A second decree proposing the automatic renewal of rental contracts would only come into effect if approved by the reduced legislature since the government did not have a majority to validate it, Sanchez said.

The interventionist measures will only serve to drive away the investment needed to increase supply, said Carolina Roca, president of the Association of Property Developers of Madrid.

"The legal uncertainty inherent in both decrees will result in a sharp slowdown in the limited investment secured to date in the construction of affordable housing," she said.

The attempted eviction of an 87-year-old woman in Madrid triggered nationwide protests, including calls for a general strike before the election, which Sanchez said his government would respect.

At Nebraska rally, Trump seeks to keep GOP support

• By JARRETT RENSHAW and GRAM SLATTERY

GRAND ISLAND, Nebraska (Reuters) - US President Donald Trump pledged to expand access to tax-exempt diesel fuel while warning of a dark future if Democrats win the midterms during a rally on Monday night in Nebraska, a state where farmers and truckers face sharply higher fuel prices and inflation has weighed heavily on the rural economy.

Trump's stop in the city of Grand Island was part of his 32-day sprint to the November 3 midterm elections, a campaign in which he is spending considerable time in conservative strongholds, helping defend Senate and House seats that until several months ago were considered safe for Republicans. Trump, as he has done in previous rallies, urged

Republicans to “pretend” he is on the ballot, arguing that voters should view the midterms as a referendum on his administration and economic record.

His party is trying to persuade voters that investment, manufacturing and economic growth under Trump outweigh the pain of higher prices stemming from the unpopular US-Israeli war on Iran.

But Republicans enter the final weeks of the campaign facing a difficult national political environment. A Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Monday found Trump's approval rating at 32%, matching the lowest reading of his political career, while registered voters preferred Democrats over Republicans 44% to 37% when asked which party they would support in the midterms. Among independents, Democrats led 37% to 21%, with 28% undecided.

Ukrainian drones kill two, hit fuel hub in attack on Moscow

\- Reuters

Ukrainian drones killed two people and hit a major fuel depot overnight in one of the biggest attacks of the war on Moscow and the surrounding region, Russian military bloggers said.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Ukraine had launched more than 650 drones towards the capital, most of which were shot down.

Andrei Vorobyov, the governor of the Moscow region which surrounds the capital, said that 185 Ukrainian drones had been destroyed or brought down over his region. He said seven people had been injured and that 47 houses, 4 apartments and 3 cars had been damaged.

Prominent war blogger Yuri Podolyaka said an oil storage tank was hit at the Volodarskaya oil storage and distribution facility, the biggest in the Moscow region. The facility stores diesel, gasoline and jet fuel. There was no official confirmation that it had been hit.

Volodarskaya is one of the major hubs in the distribution system of state pipeline monopoly Transneft and is linked to Moscow's main oil refinery. It supplies fuel to all three of the capital's large airports.

A Ukrainian war blog, Supernova+, published video purporting to show a huge blaze at the site. Reuters could not immediately verify it.

Ukraine has increasingly targeted oil refineries, depots and export terminals in an effort to deprive Moscow of the revenues it needs to finance the war that Russia began in February 2022.

Podolyaka and other Russian bloggers said, without citing evidence, that Ukraine's overnight attack was also intended to hit the Moscow oil refinery in the southeast of the capital, but that Russian air defenses had prevented this.

The refinery, just inside the city ring road, has been hit several times, most recently on September 20, the main day of voting in Russia's parliamentary election.

Russia has recently intensified attacks on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, sending waves of missiles and drones by night and day. Its latest targets have included bridges across the Dnipro river.

Vorobyov, the head of the Moscow region, said the body of a 71-year-old man had been pulled from under the rubble of a house and that a 20-year-old man had been killed in a nearby village.

The head of the town of Domodedovo, south of Moscow and home to the country's third-largest airport, said work was under way to restore electricity to villages that had been hit by drones.

ANTARCTIC 'GHOST PARTICLE' HUNT Francis Halzen wins Nobel Physics Prize

• By NIKLAS POLLARD, JOHAN AHLANDER and SIMON JOHNSON

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Belgian-American Francis Halzen won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work creating an observatory to detect high-energy neutrinos – some of the universe’s most elusive subatomic particles – and try to establish how they are made.

Halzen, 82, realized that pristine ice at the South Pole could be used to track such neutrinos, sometimes known as “ghost particles” for the way they pass through the Earth and our bodies without a trace, only interacting with matter extremely rarely.

"The messengers bring information from the cosmos," Eva Olsson, of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, told a press conference. "They open the door to distant galaxies and tell us about the processes of exploding stars."

The interactions registered by the IceCube observatory in Antarctica provide information about how high-energy neutrinos are created and may even reveal previously unknown phenomena, the Academy said.

In 2014, the US-based Smithsonian magazine dubbed Halzen “Neutrino Man” when giving him one of its Ingenuity Awards, acclaiming him for an “amazing experiment (that) heralds the beginning of a new era in astronomy.”

It even published a comic illustrating his life: "How One Physicist's Pursuit of the Cosmos Took Off in Antarctica".

The particle detector comprises more than 5,000 sensors set in a cubic kilometer of Antarctic ice, which extends to a depth of 2,500 meters below the surface near the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.

The observatory awaits blips from the nearly massless high-energy neutrinos, which unlike other particles do not lose energy or change direction, in the hope of tracing their paths back to exploding stars, gamma-ray bursts, and cataclysmic phenomena involving black holes and neutron stars. It can expect to register about one per day.

Halzen, a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the United States, first presented his idea for capturing neutrino traces at the South Pole in 1988, but the project was not completed until 2011.

"I have to emphasize how lucky I was because, when we started this project, everybody realized this was maybe a good idea, but very few thought it would work, including myself," Halzen told the press conference by telephone.

Neutrinos are electrically neutral, undisturbed by any magnetic field, which means that, in contrast to electromagnetic waves such as visible light, the direction from which they arrive points directly back to their source.

FRANCIS HALZEN (Reuters)

The observatory has been able to determine that high-energy neutrinos originate within but also far outside our own galaxy, setting in motion an interstellar quest to find the objects and processes that create them.

Through the long winter at the South Pole, when bringing anything in or out is difficult as temperatures below -50°C preclude even aircraft landing, a skeleton crew of “winterovers” have to maintain the observatory.

The station, home to many other activities, can house as many as 150 people and has an industrial kitchen, dining room, gym and even a greenhouse. Six days ago it celebrated the sun's return above the horizon aftre six months of night with a six-hole ice-golf tournament.

Halzen said the main fruits of his work were not yet apparent and that it was too early to say exactly what it could reveal about the universe.

"The real excitement is that I cannot answer that question yet," he said. "This is just an introduction to the science, the astronomy is still to come."

The Nobel physics laureate receives an award of 12 million Swedish crowns (\$1.2 million).

The Nobel Prizes were established under the will of Swedish inventor and entrepreneur Alfred Nobel, whose fortune was built in part on the invention of dynamite.

Physics was prominent in Nobel's will and the prize remains one of the discipline's highest distinctions. Over the decades, it has recognized discoveries that have fundamentally reshaped humanity's understanding of the universe.

Among past laureates are some of the most celebrated figures in science, including Albert Einstein, Marie and Pierre Curie, Max Planck and Niels Bohr, whose work helped establish the foundations of modern physics.

Jeffrey Archer, UK novelist and scandal-plagued politician, dies at 86

BRITISH AUTHOR Jeffrey Archer poses for a photograph in his flat in London in 2011. (Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters)

• By SAM TOBIN

LONDON (Reuters) - Jeffrey Archer, the bestselling British novelist and former politician who was jailed for lying in a high-profile libel case, died aged 86 on Monday, just one day before his final novel Adam and Eve was due to be published.

The confidant of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher lived a life that swung from the heights of luxury and fame to the lows of a two-year stint in prison for perjury over paying a woman for sex.

He sold more than 300 million copies of his books, spent a total of five and a half years on the New York Times bestseller lists and found fans around the world with his pacy thrillers, among them the 1976 debut Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less and 1979's mass-selling Kane & Abel.

Publisher HarperCollins said Archer, who had met and signed books for fans in London's Leicester Square Theatre on Sunday and had been scheduled to speak at events this week, died "suddenly and peacefully at home ... between writing sessions."

"We're all devastated to have lost a writer who has brought joy to generations of readers – and a true friend," said Kate Elton, HarperCollins' UK CEO and Archer's editor.

"When he set out to write Adam and Eve, he told me from the very beginning that it would be his final novel."

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Heavy debts curtailed his life as a lawmaker

Archer first made headlines when he entered parliament in 1969, aged 29, before he became a casualty of a fraudulent investment scheme which meant he did not stand for re-election in 1974 but went into writing to try to clear his debts.

"When I was three, I wanted to be four; when I was four, I wanted to be prime minister," he was quoted as saying in 2001.

Despite only a short stint in parliament, he remained

a central figure within the Conservative Party, spent more than 30 years sitting in the upper House of Lords chamber in parliament and raised millions of pounds for charity.

Cabinet ministers and celebrities flocked to his "champagne and shepherd's pie" parties, with guests recalling how anyone looking for the bathroom at his London apartment was told to "Go past the Picasso and turn left at the Matisse."

Some of that interest waned with his very public downfall.

In 1987, Archer sued the Daily Star tabloid for saying he had paid a woman for sex, winning a then-record £500,000 (\$660,450) in damages.

The case returned to the public eye when he was selected as the Conservative candidate to become London's first elected mayor in 1999. A former friend accused him of lying and Archer was eventually charged with perjury and perverting the course of justice, convicted and sentenced to four years' imprisonment. He served two years, during which time he wrote "A Prison Diary."

---

Archer trial notorious for judge's summing up

The trial became notorious for the judge's summing up of evidence given by Archer's wife Mary.

"Remember Mary Archer in the witness box," the judge, Bernard Caulfield, told the jury. "Your vision of her will probably never disappear. Has she elegance? Has she fragrance? Would she have, without the strain of this trial, radiance?"

And, of Archer, he added: "Is he in need of cold, unloving, rubber-insulated sex in a seedy hotel?"

The fall from grace did no harm to his literary career. HarperCollins said Archer's books were sold in 119 countries and he was due to speak at an event in London on Wednesday and the Cheltenham Literature Festival this weekend.

Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Conservatives, said she was shocked by the news, having received a message from Archer as she attended her annual party conference on Monday morning saying: "great outfit, great speech, no need to reply."

Asked recently by the BBC why he wanted Adam and Eve to be his last book, Archer said: "It's been 50 very happy years. But there is always a time. I think the clever thing in life is when to get out."

Remember: A biblical commandment

ALBANIAN PRIME MINISTER Edi Rama is flanked by US Congressman Richie Torres (left) and AJC president Daniel Rosen. (AJC)

GRAPEVINE

• By GREER FAY CASHMAN

■ AN ENDLESS number of memorial events honoring the victims and the released hostages of Hamas's October 7 massacre are taking place in Israel and throughout the Jewish world.

and Zionists."

Some of these events began almost a month ago. Others will be held in the coming weeks and months. The Bible commands the Children of Israel to remember both the good and the bad; and that commandment has been observed from generation to generation.

Meanwhile, some former hostages or members of their families who campaigned for their release have discovered dormant talents they were previously unaware of.

Among the best known of these is Eli Sharabi, who has written a memoir about the horrors he experienced and is in frequent demand as a speaker in Israel and abroad. Time Magazine listed his book Hostage as one of the “must-read books for 2025.”

Sharabi and actress Shani Cohen were set to co-host an independent national memorial ceremony of October 7 families at Yarkon Park, Ganei Yehoshua, in Tel Aviv on the evening of October 7.

Sharabi, a member of Kibbutz Be'eri, who lost his wife Lianne, their two teenage daughters Noiya and Yahel, and his brother Yossi, was abducted by Hamas and spent 491 days in captivity prior to his release in February 2025.

In hosting tonight's ceremony, he said that he was fulfilling the promises that he made to all four of his nearest and dearest to continue to tell the story and remind the world of this barbarous act of terrorism.

“October 7 must remain etched in our hearts forever as an indelible date,” Sharabi said. Kumu (Arise) and the October 7 Families Movement, which represents survivors and former hostages in addition to the families who became a united force in the effort to secure the release of all hostages, have organized the event.

Throughout the past three years, extraordinary stories of the bravery of civilians in defending their homes, protecting their families, rescuing total strangers, and challenging the government in their quest for the release of hostages have been published across the media and on websites of numerous organizations.

Many stories remain untold. News outlets, the National Library of Israel, the Government Press Office, and others are gradually collecting these stories to create a comprehensive file on the darkest chapter in Israel's history.

Many have referred to it as the worst catastrophe since the Holocaust.

Interestingly, the last transport of Jews from Czestochowa, Poland, to the Treblinka death camp took place on October 7, 1942.

Another notable October 7 event occurred in 1944, when an armed uprising in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp took place. For several months before the revolt, young Jewish women who worked as forced laborers in the munitions factory in the Auschwitz compound smuggled small amounts of gunpowder wrapped in cloth or paper.

They formed a human chain of smugglers, passing the wrapped gunpowder from one to another until it reached the prisoners working in the camp's crematoria.

They were the ones who led the October 7 revolt, in which 250 prisoners died, and correctional officers shot another 200 after the fighting ceased.

■ BOYCOTT AND harassment notwithstanding, Israelis continue to make headway in international organizations. A recent example is Vered Sharvit Biron, who is the only Israeli appointed to the elite Advisory Council of the International Luxury Hotel Association (ILHA).

ILHA is a global forum for high-end hospitality industry experts and managers. Altogether, ILHA has over a million hotel and tourism managers as well as hotel owners and investors in some 90 countries. Together, they design the hospitality industries of the future.

Sharvit Biron, with extensive experience in initiating projects and policies, is an expert in developing concepts and brand names in the field of well-being hospitality.

She was directly involved in creating the Gordonia Boutique Hotel in Ma'aleh Hahamisha, and has been at the forefront of other projects aimed at improving quality of life.

■ SO MANY conferences are taking place this month that some people, including speakers, will be racing from conference to conference. One such speaker is Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion, who will be appearing at the annual Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference. He also attends most other conferences and major milestone events in the capital.

Also appearing at the Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference is Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar, who recently spoke at the Friends of Zion Ambassadors' Summit.

Sa'ar is also speaking at the National Conservatism Conference, which is being held this week at the International Convention Center Jerusalem (Binyanei Hauma).

Among the other speakers are Poland's former president, Andrzej Duda, and Jerusalem Post Editor-in-Chief Zvika Klein.

In 2017, Duda, as Poland's president, paid a state visit to Israel. A practicing Catholic, Duda is married to Agata Kornhauser-Duda, whose half-Jewish father Julian Kornhauser is a well-known writer, poet, translator and literary critic.

He is a survivor of the Dachau concentration camp. As for Duda, his grandfather was a member of the Polish Home Army and fought the Nazis during World War II.

■ DESPITE ALL the uncertainties and traded insults related to the Knesset elections, one issue on which there is consensus is the heroism displayed by the passengers of Flydubai Flight FZ1073.

The incident involved the captain and off-duty pilots on this flight, in which a horrible disaster resulting from a terrorist attack was narrowly averted.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was impressed by all concerned, met with the Israelis who had entered the cockpit and overpowered the assailant.

On Saturday night, he also telephoned the wounded Indian pilot, Capt. Smit Machchhar, whom he commended for his heroism and invited to come to Israel with India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, to light an Independence Day torch.

Some may think Netanyahu was jumping the gun. Still, even people in Israel's peace camp acknowledged the spontaneous, united, and resourceful actions of the passengers on the plane, so the invitation will stand regardless of who the next prime minister is.

India received independence from British rule in July 1947, 10 months ahead of Israel's independence from British rule in May 1948.

Modi was understandably proud of the Indian pilot. He was not the only one: other major political figures such as US President Donald Trump and France's Europe and Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Noël Barrot also expressed their admiration.

■ “MOST POLITICAL parties ignore the English-speaking community,” declared Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, a former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, as she addressed a packed auditorium at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem this week.

Attendance was so large that the overflow audience had to sit on the stairs and on hastily provided free-standing chairs instead of one of the 300 upholstered theater-style seats.

Hassan-Nahoum, who wears several hats, is one of 10 political party representatives vying for mandates in the upcoming Knesset elections.

She represented the People of Israel Party. The English-language event, organized as a town hall meeting, was hosted by Israel365 to give voters from English-speaking countries an overview of each party's platform so that, on October 27, they can make more informed choices before placing a slip in the ballot box.

The other speakers were Mati Gill (B'Yachad); Moran Zer Katzenstein (The Democrats); Amichai Chikli (Likud); Yishai Fleisher (Otzma Yehudit); Einat Wilf (The Reservists-Economic Party); Ohad Tal (Religious Zionism-Zehut); Lian Folk

David (Yashar); Dan Illouz (Yisrael Beytenu); and Moshe Feiglin (Zehut).

The overwhelming majority of speakers were born and raised in Israel. Nevertheless, had mastered American or British accents and speech nuances usually part of a mother tongue, not necessarily the fluency of a foreign language.

The moderator was Rabbi Pesach Wolicki, who is the lead anchor and commentator on US-Israel relations and Middle East politics on Israel 365 Action's daily YouTube channel.

The speakers were polite to each other; some even complimented a rival from another party, and they all shook hands when it was over.

To help with understanding the issues, there was a brochure with brief explanations of each party and its leader(s), their platforms, and thumbnail biographies of each speaker.

Each was given five minutes to present their case, and then an additional two minutes to answer questions. Everyone stuck to the rules.

Between them, they covered a wide range of subjects, including defense, safety, security, economics, the future of children, history, haredim (ultra-Orthodox), national service, responsibility, accountability, prison conditions, the Temple Mount, national iden tity, a Palestinian state, terrorism, the cost of living, and education.

Although the priorities were in different orders, they were similar, and the bottom line was the same. Everyone spoke of the need for change. Nearly everyone refrained from extolling the virtues of the party leader and concentrated on the party platform.

Except for Chikli, who said that Gadi Eisenkot (Yashar) lacks the diplomatic experience to be a prime minister, no one criticized the leader of another party. Although the government was chastised for repeating mistakes in judgment and policy, no one reproached any individual.

There were comments about the attributes which a leader of the nation should possess. Wilf said that if she were running on her own, her slogan would be: "Make Israel smart again."

She also stressed that "reservist" was not just the party's name, but part of its mem-

FORMER CHIEF RABBIS Shlomo Amar and David Lau join the Second Hakafot, organized by Kesher Yehudi, in Jerusalem. (Kesher Yehudi)

bers' identity. They are all IDF reservists who have served on the front lines of the battlefield, she said.

Fleisher, in response to the question of qualities desired in a leader, said, "Not everyone has a special skill in politics. What you need is somebody who can get the job done."

Feiglin drew loud and sustained applause when he spoke of the government's inability to get rid of terrorists. He also noted that both left-wing and right-wing parties have been busy bashing each other instead of solving problems.

The overall mood was distinctly right-wing, among both speakers and audience, but not entirely so. Katzenstein had supporters who cheered and applauded her.

The significance of the event was evident not only in the size of the audience but also in the number of people taking notes or recording remarks and images with their cell phones.

■ IN TEL AVIV, the Anglo vote is also being courted. The Tisch Center for Jewish Dialogue, in partnership with Jewish Philanthropy and Jewish Insider, will host a similar panel discussion at ANU Museum of the Jewish People on Wednesday, October 14, at 7 p.m. Israel time.

Aware that various circles in the Jewish Diaspora are no less interested in the elections, organizers have announced that the event will run online from 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. ET and 7:30 to 9 p.m. Israel time.

This would explain why co-sponsors include The American Zionist Movement, Belong, The Jewish Federation of Tulsa, and MASA Israel Journey.

Hassan-Nahoum and Chikli will appear again. Other panelists will be Oded Forer (Yisrael Beytenu), Alex Rif (Yashar), Moshe Tur-Paz (B'Yachad), Gaby Lasky (The Democrats), Sharren Haskell (Israel First), Pnina Tameno-Shete (Blue and White). Judah Ari Gross, the managing editor of eJewish Philanthropy, will moderate.

■ VARIOUS JEWISH NGOs accredited to United Nations councils and committees have been active in monitoring antisemitic incidents and anti-Israel activities, as well as the delegitimization of Isra-

el, boycotts, and denial of evidence, and bringing such information to the attention of UN bodies.

One such organization is B'nai B'rith International, which late last month brought Israeli musician Kobi Farhi to testify before the UN Human Rights Council.

Farhi is the founder and lead singer of the heavy metal band Orphaned Land, which specializes in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean folk and rock metal.

Farhi, who has a long history of bringing Israelis, Palestinians, and other Arabs together through a common love of music, has in recent years been targeted for protest demonstrations and boycotts, for no reason other than his nationality.

Farhi has a global following, but the discrimination is hurting his career.

His family roots extend throughout the Middle East, and they show up in his music.

Because of his popularity among Jews and Muslims, B'nai B'rith International chose to bring him to New York to testify before the UNHRC to highlight what it calls "the growing scourge of anti-Israel discrimination and the violation of Israeli citizens' right to equal treatment irrespective of their nationality in an era of surging international antipathy and hatred toward Jews

The UN Human Rights Office, meanwhile, has added fuel to the fire by blacklisting companies that it regards as being linked to Israeli policies of which it disapproves.

B'nai B'rith International has pointed out that other countries engaged in conflicts are not subjected to such strategies, nor are goods from certain regions in those countries banned as is the case with Israel.

For example, 11 countries have banned goods, including those brought in by tourists for personal use, that have been produced by Israeli companies operating in the West Bank.

Farhi told the UN that for 35 years, he had been using music to build bridges between Israelis, Muslims, and Palestinians.

"My band has toured with Muslim and Palestinian musicians, shared awards with Palestinian artists, and received five awards for peace," the musician said.

“Over the years, something extraordinary happened: Muslim fans across the Middle East embraced our music. Some even tattooed our lyrics on their bodies,” he continued.

“Others have paid a terrible price – some were imprisoned simply for having contact with us or for possessing our albums. We have spent decades proving that music can cross borders that politics cannot,” Farhi said.

“Yet in Barcelona in 2024, I was treated differently simply because I am Israeli. A boycott campaign pressured the club where we were scheduled to perform,” he told the UN. “Eventually, the concert took place, while a pro-Palestinian demonstration was held outside.”

"I respect the right to protest. But I ask you: Why should an Israeli artist who has spent 35 years building bridges be judged by his nationality rather than by the bridges he has built? Music cannot solve every conflict," he concluded, "but it can remind us that the other side is human."

B'nai B'rith International announced that it will continue to provide a platform at the UNHRC to victims of anti-Jewish prejudice and violence over the coming days.

■ ON A happier note, against the backdrop of the UN, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, who attended the United Nations General Assembly, was honored by the American Jewish Congress with its Profile of Courage Award in recognition of his outspoken stance against antisemitism and Hamas, his firm position against Iran, and his support for Israel.

The presentation ceremony was held in the presence of government leaders, representatives of the Jewish community, and prominent members of the business community.

Among those in attendance were former New York City mayor Eric Adams and US Congressman Ritchie Torres.

AJC president Daniel Rosen, harking back to the period of World War II, said, "When the Nazis demanded lists of Jews, Albania would not bend or bargain.

“Eighty years later, while too many leaders hedge, Prime Minister Rama speaks with moral clarity against Hamas and antisemitism, stands firm against Iran, and remains a steadfast ally of the United States and a true friend of Israel.

"A promise saved the Jews of Albania. Tonight, we renew our own Besa to the Albanian people and to the prime minister: A promise of friendship, remembrance, and future partnership," Rosen said.

“Besa” refers to the Albanian code of honor, meaning “to keep a promise.”

During a visit to Israel last January, Rama spoke at a special session of the Knesset where he condemned Hamas and described antisemitism as an assault on the moral architecture of humanity.

During that visit, he was awarded the Israeli Presidential Medal of Honor by President Isaac Herzog.

In contrast to several other European countries, Albania has taken a strong position against Iran and was the first European country to sever diplomatic relations with Iran.

■ THE YOM Kippur War of 1973 lasted 19 days. More than 2,600 soldiers made the supreme sacrifice. The wounded were in the range of 8,000.

In the Gaza war, which has been waged for three years, close to a thousand IDF soldiers have died in combat, according to data released by the Foreign Ministry. Whether this indicates that Israel has a much stronger army, or that more flak jackets are being distributed, remains conjecture.

Despite the more than half-century difference between the Yom Kippur War and the Gaza war, what unites them beyond pain and bereavement is that some of the survivors of both wars, along with their families, have chosen life.

About a year after the Yom Kippur War, Haim Hefer and Dov "Dubi" Seltzer wrote the uplifting song Anachnu Lo Nafsik Lashir ("We will not stop singing"), which Yehoram Gaon initially recorded and sang.

Today's generation says: "We will not stop dancing." Some of the families of Hamas victims were opposed to the Second Hakafot of Sukkot, especially those held on the Nova music festival site, saying that it was like dancing on the blood of the dead.

There were many places all over the country in which Second Hakafot were held, especially in various parts of Jerusalem, most notably in religious neighborhoods, at the Western Wall, in hotel plazas, and in the Liberty Bell Park, where it has been a tradition for over 40 years, attracting merrymakers of all stripes.

This year was the first time that the Second Hakafot were held since the inhuman attack by Hamas three years ago.

Among the Jerusalem venues was David Hall, located between east and west Jerusalem, where Kesher Yehudi sponsored the event with support from Shmuel Yosef Rieder and Jeff Weiskopf. Kesher Yehudi seeks to heal the rifts between different sectors of Israel's Jewish communities while connecting them and their Jewish heritage.

Some 300 people who were Nova music festival survivors or bereaved families were brought in from across Israel to join the masses of Jerusalemites. Other gatherings also included survivors, bereaved families, and former hostages.

The festivities at David Hall included the dedication of a new Torah scroll in memory of 30 of the people murdered at the Nova music festival. Thirty of their friends, many themselves survivors, had spent the past year observing Shabbat in their memory.

Survivors who lost friends at that festival danced again on Simchat Torah, this time holding a Torah dedicated to the friends they lost.

"After October 7, I hated every second that I was alive. I carried so much guilt that I survived when my friends did not, and for a long time every day was painful," said Nova massacre survivor Michal Ohana.

"Kesher Yehudi first taught me to love Shabbat. Over these three years, through Shabbat, the friendships we built and everything we learned together helped me learn to love life, and myself, again."

“Simchat Torah was the day our enemies tried to extinguish the light and joy of the Jewish people. Three years later, those most directly impacted by that attack, Nova survivors and families who lost children, loved ones, and friends, came together not only to remember, but to celebrate, to dance and to bring more light into the world,” said Rabbi Elliot Mathias, the newly appointed CEO of Kesher Yehudi.

Joining participants in the festivities were former chief rabbis of Israel David Lau and Shlomo Amar, who is now Sephardi chief rabbi of Jerusalem.

greerfc@gmail.com

A FULL PAGE OF EXERCISE FOR THE BRAIN EVERY SUNDAY AND WEDNESDAY

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ACROSS

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CROSSWORDS

1 Built (on)

6 Many an A-lister

11 Swing's path

14 Cartoon canine who speaks with an "R" consonant mutation

15 Level

16 "Argo" org.

17 Ruin the Olympic Games?

19 Every last bit

20 Tammy Duckworth's title, briefly

21 Merry-go-round music

22 Bas-\_

24 Like many dirt roads

26 Home of Hawaii's Merrie Monarch Festival

27 Destroy casual chitchat?

32 Tennis great Andre

35 Georgia airport code

36 "If you ask me ..."

37 Massage

38 Super vision?

39 Polite title

40 A in geometry

42 French wine classification

43 Annette of "Virgin River"

46 Wreak havoc on origami supplies?

49 Forever and ever

50 Repeat for emphasis

54 "Who \_!"

57 Burlesque bit

58 Light touch

59 Sometimes called, for short

60 Lay waste to a dairy product?

63 Virginia Woolf's "Dalloway"

64 "mañana"

65 A-list

66 Light touch

67 Elizabeth who plays the Scarlet Witch

68 Trig ratios

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DOWN

1 Common voice

for an opera villain

2 Colorado town

near Snowmass

3 Curling piece

4 "\_\_tu": Verdi aria

5 Brunei money

6 Orchard fruit

7 Congeal

8 Viscous goo

9 Having one's day in court?

10 Deal in, as vintage clothing

11 Breakfast bowl berry

12 Annoy but good

13 Baby camel

18 Africa-to-Asia land bridge

23 Trickster in Norse mythology

25 Jr. officers

26 URL starter

28 Invites to one's apartment, say

29 Childish comeback

30 Get just right

31 Giant oceanic surface current

32 Part of UAE

33 Hindu mentor

34 Lie for, say

38 Goes astray

41 Las Vegas WNBA team

42 Primary

43 \_\_\_\_ nerve

44 Shows signs of growth?

45 Hockey Hall of Famer Bobby

47 Top dog

48 Three-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback Troy

51 Saved on supper, perhaps

52 Sample size?

53 Stage combat props

54 Not quite dry

55 Sticky pod

56 From Perth to Sydney

57 Make full

61 Curvy letter

62 Yale grad

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QUICK CROSSWORD

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Across

3 Name that means "lion" in Hebrew (3)

7 Solar \_\_\_\_ (cluster of interconnected nerves and ganglion the abdomen) (6)

8 Candy bar center, perhaps (GO TUNA anagram) (6)

9 "Smallville" girl \_\_\_\_ Lang (4)

10 Bit of 1773 Boston Harbor jetsam (CAT SHEET anagram) (3,5)

11 Play onstage or in film (OR PARTY anagram) (7)

13 Be\_\_\_\_ (marry) (5)

15 Man of \_\_\_\_ (Superman) (5)

17 Jor-El's planet (7)

21 Medical Center in Ashkelon (8)

22 \_ Lane (reporter for "The Daily Planet") (4)

24 Juice extraction device (6)

25 Kabul resident (6)

26 \_ -El (Clark Kent's birth name) (3)

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Down

1 \_\_\_\_-bargain (make a deal with the prosecution) (4)

2 Vehicle pulled by yoked animals (ORC TAX anagram) (6)

3 Place to rest one's butt (7)

4 Fret-board decoration (5)

5 Superman foe Lex \_\_\_\_(6)

6 Tiny Tim's voice (8)

9 "Stiff Upper \_\_\_\_, Jeeves" (P.G. Wodehouse) (3)

12 Old hat (TOAD DUET anagram) (8)

14 Like first, second, or third (7)

16 Itchy skin condition (6)

18 Lump in one's throat? (GM HELP anagram) (6)

19 Currency in Caesarea (3)

20 Superman's secret identity: \_\_ Kent (5)

23 iOS tablet (PAID anagram) (4)

How many words of three or more letters, including plurals, can you make from the five letters, using each letter only once? No foreign words or words beginning with a capital are allowed. There's at least one five-letter word.

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TODAY'S GOALS:

HIDATO®

Good - 8 Excellent - 10 Amazing - 11

SOLUTION 6230: den, doe, doer, don, done, dor, drone, end, eon, nerd, nod, node, nor, ode, one, oner, ore, red, redo, rend, rod, rode, roe, roed, ronde, rone.

FIND THE PATH - SOLVE THE PUZZLE

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YESTERDAY'S SOLUTION

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Complete the grid so that numbers 1 - 140 connect horizontally, vertically or diagonally: | 27 | 21 | 14 | 26 | 29 | 3 | 33 | 38 | 126 | 1 | 39 | 123 | 16 | 11 | 10 | 6 | 41 | 59 | 128 | 140 | 43 | 60 | 119 | 129 | 130 | | 46 | 61 | 115 | 48 | 116 | 94 | 95 | 91 | 53 | 63 | 110 | 97 | 50 | 67 | 105 | 82 | 51 | 76 | 66 | 87 | 86 | 80 | 77 | 72 | 107 | 103 | 84 | 78 | 70 | SOLUTION ON SUNDAY

© THE PUZZLE COMPANY

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SUDOKU

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VERY EASY | 6 | 5 | 9 | 3 | 9 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 8 | 3 | 9 | 8 | 4 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 9 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 9 | 4 | 7 | 4 | 8 | ---

EASY | 1 | 8 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 6 | 3 | 9 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 3 | 1 | 9 | 8 | 6 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 9 | ---

MEDIUM | 2 | 8 | 3 | 9 | 8 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 9 | 8 | 9 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 8 | 5 | 7 | 2 | ---

HARD | 1 | 8 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 6 | 3 | 9 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 3 | 1 | 9 | 8 | 6 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 9 |

Insert the missing letters to complete ten words - five across the grid and five down.

6191

PREVIOUS SOLUTION (other combinations may be possible)

Reference: Concise Oxford 10th Edition

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12:00 12 PM

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YES TV DRAMA

13:45 Malkat Hayofi Shel

Jerusalam

14:13 Suits 8

15:01 Whitstable Pearl

18:16 Malkat Hayofi Shel Jerusalem

18:44 Sullivan's Crossing 3

19:30 Death Valley 2

20:17 Five Star Weekend

22:25 I Fought The Law

23:14 Serpent Queen 2

00:06 Hacks 5

00:39 I Fought The Law

01:27 Serpent Queen 2

02:21 Hacks 5

02:54 I Fought The Law YES TV ACTION

YES TV ACTION

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06:00 Ncis 23

06:45 Fbi: International 2

07:28 Fbi: International 2

10:32 Hotel Costiera

11:17 Trigger Point 3

12:07 Ncis 23

12:52 Fbi: International 2

13:37 Fbi: International 2

14:22 F.B.I. 8

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15:52 Hotel Costiera

16:37 Trigger Point 3

17:27 Ncis 23

18:12 Fbi: International 2

18:57 Fbi: International 2

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YES TV COMEDY

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20:30 Married With Children 6

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6

23:20 Brooklyn 99 S5

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5

MIDDLE EAST TV (Y109/H150)

11:30 The 700 Club

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14:00 Currency of Heaven 14:30 The Deepest Well 15:00 Never Wave at a Wac

17:00 Wisdom to Win With Dr. Clarice

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23:00 Manna Fest with Perry Stone

23:30 Cross Talk With Dr.

Randy Weiss

00:00 Flavors Of Israel

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HISTORY (Y37/H43)

06:00 The War on Home - Ep. 1

06:30 The War on Home - Ep.

07:05 The War on Home - Ep. 3

07:32 The War on Home - Ep. 4

08:05 1973 War Diaries - Ep. 1

08:59 1973 War Diaries - Ep. 2

10:54 Battle of the Negev - Ep. 2

11:56 Silence of the Sirens

13:06 The 11th Day: The Survivors of Munich

15:10 The Infiltrators

16:08 Poets of the Palmach Generation

18:43 The War after the War 20:14 Moments in October 1973

21:17 The War on Home - Ep. 1

21:49 The War on Home - Ep. 2

22:50 The War on Home - Ep. 4

00:08 The Unbelievable With Dan Aykroyd 3 - Ep

02:12 Swamp People 8 - Ep. 17

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CLASSICA HD

07:00 Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde (Rattle)

08:12 Beethoven: Symphony No. 8 (Jordan)

10:22 Modena - City of Belca-

nto

10:47 Berg: Piano Sonata, Op. 1

11:02 Arvo Part: Kanon Pokajanen

13:41 Chopin: Piano Concerto

No. 2, Op. 21

14:50 Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 (2021)

15:01 Strauss and Mozart

17:45 Mahler: The Youth Wunderhorn

18:49 Schubert: Four Impromptus. Op. 90

19:54 Misha Fomin at the Concertgebouw

23:23 Dvorak: Symphony No. 9 (Heyward)

01:00 Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto, Op. 35

01:41 Hollywood Gala - Awards Night

03:07 Documentary: Gianandrea Noseda

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YES DOCU (Y8)

08:10 One Eye Open A raw, personal chronicle follows reservists from October 7 to today, revealing the heavy

despite exhaustion, despair and the painful disruption of their lives. Dir. Tom Giat. Israel. 2026

09:10 The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue "The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue". During Hamas's 7-10 attack, retired general Noam

attack, retired general Noam

Tibon races to save son and his

family, turning personal bravvery into a symbol of national resilience. Dir. Barry Avrich. 2025

10:45 Animals E.R A year between the walls of the only animals emergency room in level from the exciting stories

of the animals and their owners, to the turn of the 7.10, and the results of the slaughter on the animals. 2024.

11:35 Casualty Officer, Golani Since October 7, 2023, the Golani Infantry Brigade has lost 83 soldiers and hundreds of wounded. The film is dedi

officer for the victims of Shir Nadal during this difficult time. 2024.

12:50 Torn Street artists Nitzan Mintz and Dede Bandaid were in New York when Hume carried out the bloody

napped people became symbols of the October 7th tragedy.

14:10 Good Morning Gaza Reservist and psychology student Or Brandes turns the military radio into a podcast,

fear, denial, revenge and dark humor amid the fighting after October 7. Dir. Hanan Brandes. Israel. 2026

15:05 In The Aftermath Four personal stories from October 7: parents of a kidnapped young man, a Be'eri resident, a

1st. Will about pain, excellence, and hope. Dir. Yosef Oppenheimer. Israel-Germany, 2025.

16:35 Oriya"s Tree On October 7, 2023, Oriya Litman was murdered near an eucalyptus tree by Kibhutz Mefakim while

film traces that morning's events and creation of a memorial in her honor.

16:45 Holding Liat After Liat Beinin Atzili is kidnapped on October 7th, her Israeli-American family faces their own con-

nlicting perspectives to fight for her release. Dir. Brandon Kramer (among producers: Darren Aronofsky). 2025

18:20 Paradise Shattered Today, as she and her family are evacuated to Kibbutz She-

Edge"), which takes on an ominous meaning after the events of October 7th. 2024.

mapped by Hamas militants from his home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza. His older brother Yonatan begins the fight for Alon's return - it becomes the main work of his life.

20:05 Crew cut After the tragic events of October 7, barber Alon Mizrahi traveled the country giving haircuts to soldiers.

Two years later, they return to his salon and share how their lives have changed since then. Israel. 2025

21:00 One Eye Open A raw, personal chronicle follows reservists from October 7 to

despite exhaustion, despair and the painful disruption of their lives. Dir. Tom Giat. Israel. 2026

21:55 Good Morning Gaza Reservist and psychology student Or Brandes turns the military's into a podcast.

I can, denial, revenge and dark humor amid the fighting after October 7. Dir. Hanan Brandes. Israel. 2026

22:50 One Eye Open A raw, personal chronicle follows reservists from October 7 to

despite exhaustion, despair and the painful disruption of their lives. Dir. Tom Giat. Israel. 2026

23:45 Screams Before Silence A film led by Sheryl Sandberg that provides evidence of rape

Sosna, who describes the sexual assault she experienced. Dir: Anat Stalinski.

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CHANNEL 8 (H8)

06:02 Heart and Soul 2024

06:44 Heart and Soul 2024

07:32 SOUL TRACES

10:15 SAVED BY THE BALL

11:51 One Golden Year 12:55 A Letter to David

14:20 No Name Left Behind

15:15 We are not heroes

16:28 WHERE DO WE BELONG?

18:08 SAVED BY THE BALL

19:48 A Letter to David

21:15 SOUL CANNOT BE BUR-

IED

22:19 SAVED BY THE BALL

23:55 We will dance again

01:27 What Happened to the IDF?

02:24 What Happened to the IDF?

---

MEZZO FULL (H195)

11:00 Carlo Vistoli - Bayreuth Festival Cappella Mediterranea and Carlo Vistoli (counterten-or) led by Leonardo Gar-

Cesti, Claudio Monteverdi, and Alessandro Stradella. Bayreuth, 2025.

12:20 Mozart: Symphony No. 35 - Claudio Abbado The Berlin Philharmonic led by Claudio Abbado performs Wolfgang

Amadeus Mozart's symphony, No. 35 in D Major, K. 385, 'Haffner'. Smetana Hall, Prague, 1991.

12:41 Verdi: Requiem - Claudio Abbado (Concert). On the 100th anniversary of Verdi's death, the philharmonic sym-

Requiem. Director: Claudio Abbado. Soloists: Angela Gheroghiu, Daniela Barcellona, Roberto Ala

14:09 InterMezzo A selection of short musical clips and art-music - enjoy a variety of genres from Jazz to Classical music.

14:30 Claudio Abbado: Beethoven, Brahms Berliner Philharmoniker and Gil Shaham (violon) led by Claudio Abbado

16:21 Claudio Abbado 10 Years After Documentary.

17:13 Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 8 - Zacharias Christian

perform Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 8 in C Major K 246. 1990.

17:38 Claudio Abbado:

17:38 Claudio Abbado: Brahms Berliner Philharmoniker, Eric Ericson Chamber Choir, Bryn Terfel (baritone),

19:15 Mourad Merzouki: Phenix Dance. 'Phenix' by choreographer Mourad Merzouki performed by Mathilde

Devoghel, Aymen Fikri, Hatim Lamaarti, and Pauline Journe. Ambronay Festival, 2022.

20:09 Malandain Ballet Biarritz: Stravinsky Dance. 'Firebird' by Thierry Malandain (choreography) & 'The Rite of

(choreography). Performed by Malandain Ballet. Music by Stravinsky. Theatre de Chaillot, Paris, 2001.

21:30 Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov-DNO Amsterdam Opera in 4 acts. Royal Concert-

Dutch National Opera, Niewi

Amsterdam's Children's Chorus

led by Vasily Petrenko. Tomasz

Konieczny (Boris Godunov),

Inna Demenkova (Xenia) 2025

Konieczny (Boris Godunov), Inna Demenkova (Xenia).2025 00:31 John Coltrane -

Comblain La Tour Jazz Fe Legendary saxophone player John Coltrane's performance: Vigil, Naema, My Favorite Things. With: McCoy Tyner (piano),

Elvin Jones (drums), Jimmy Garrisson (bass). Comblain La Tour Jazz Festival, 1966.

01:09 Archie Shepp: Tribute to John Coltrane Archie Shepp (sax) All Star "Tribute to John Coltrane". With Ambrace Alin

musire (trumpet), Jason Moran (piano), Richard Davis (double-bass), Billy Hart (drums). Jazz a la Villette Festival, 2016.

62.03 McCoy Tyner: Piano

Solo McCoy Tyner (piano) performs at Kongressaal, Munich, 1983.

02:56 John Coltrane Live in Antibes 1965 The John Coltrane Quartet - John Coltrane (tenor saxophone), McCoy

Tyner (piano), Jimmy Garrison (bass), Elvin Jones (drums) - performs live in Antibes on October 23, 1965.

03:48 Verdi: Il Trovatore - Zubin Mehta Opera in 4 acts. Chorus and Orchestra of the

Enkhbat (Il conte di Luna), Maria Jose Siri (Leonora), Ekaterina Semenchuck (Azucena). 2022.

---

MOVIES

HOT CINEMA 1 (H16)

Rules Drama. The story of Homer, a young man who grew up in an orphanage in 1940s USA, and sets out to discover

09:28 The Zookeeper's Wife The account of keepers of the Warsaw Zoo, who helped save hundreds of peo-

11:31 Land Drama. A bereaved woman seeks out a new life, off the grid in Wyoming. Cast: Robin Wright, Demian Bichir. Dir.: Robin Wright (USA, 2021).

12:58 Only The Brave Drama. The true story of the brave firemen who protected the citizens of a town in Arizo-

fires. Cast: Josh Brolin, Jeff Bridges. Dir.: Joseph Kosinski (USA, 2017).

15:08 The Brutalist Drama. A visionary architect flees post-war Europe in 1947 for a

brighter future in the U.S. and finds his life forever changed by a wealthy client. Cast: Adrien Brody. Dir.: Brady Corbet (USA, 2024).

18:22 The Children Act As her marriage crumbles, a judge must decide a case involving a teenage boy who is refusing a blood transfusion on religious

principle. Cast:Emma Thompson, Stanley Tucci. Dir.:Richard Eyre (UK,2017).

20:05 Ordinary Angels

Inspired by the incredible true story of a hairdresser who rallies an entire community to help a widowed father says the

help a widowed father save the life of his ill young daughter. Cast: Hilary Swank. Dir.: Jon Gunn (USA, 2024).

22:00 Patriot's Day The story of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and the aftermath, which includes the city-

rorists. Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Michelle Monaghan. Dir.: Peter Berg (USA, 2016).

00:09 The Pursuit of Happyness A struggling salesman takes custody of his son as he's poised to begin a life-changing poised to begin a life-changing professional endeavor. With Will Smith, Thandie Newton (2006)

02:03 The Black Dahlia Thriller. In an environment of secrets and lies, two detectives disclose hidden truths about the murder of a beautiful

07:32 Ordinary Angels

Inspired by the incredible true story of a hairdresser who rallies an entire community to

help a widowed father save the life of his ill young daughter. Cast: Hilary Swank. Dir.: Jon Gunn (USA, 2024).

09:27 The Song of Names Drama. An Englishman travels throughout Europe to find his childhood friend, a violin prod

childhood friend, a violin prodigy, who disappeared on the eve of his first solo concert. Cast: Tim Roth. Dir.: Francois Girard (Canada 2019)

11:17 The Children Act As her marriage crumbles, a judge must decide a case involving a teenage boy who is refusing a blood transfusion on religious principle. Cast:Emma Thompson, Stanley Tucci. Dir.:Richard Eyre (UK,2017).

13:00 The Pursuit of Happyness A struggling salesman takes custody of his son as he's poised to begin a life-changing professional endeavor. With Will Smith, Thandie Newton (2006)

14:54 Charlie St. Cloud Drama. Charlie St. Cloud has been given the gift of seeing his deceased brother; but

his deceased brother, but when he falls in love, he faces a dilemma. With Zac Efron, Amanda Crew (2010)

16:31 Lion Drama. A small child falls asleep on a train in India and reaches the big city. He is adopted by an Australian

18:26 Adam Drama. A hard-living salesman becomes a quadriplegic after an accident. Cast: Aaron Paul. Dir.: Michael Uppendahl (USA, 2020).

20:03 The Man with the Iron Heart 1942: The Third Reich is at its peak. The Czech resistance in London plan to assassinate the ruthless Nazi

assassmate the Tutness Nazi leader Reich-protector Reinhard Heydrich in Operation Anthropoid. With Jason Clarke (2017)

22:00 The Brutalist Drama. A visionary architect flees post-war Europe in 1947 for a brighter future in the U.S. and

finds his life forever changed by a wealthy client. Cast: Adrien Brody. Dir.: Brady Corbet (USA, 2024).

01:14 Penguin Bloom Drama. A family takes in an injured Magpie that makes a profound difference in their

lives. Cast: Naomi Watts, Andrew Lincoln. Dir.: Glendyn Ivin (Australia, 2020).

02:47 Into the Deep Thriller. A woman desperate for an escape, meets a mysterious stranger who promises a

romantic trip. What follows is deceit, mistrust, and violence. Cast: Ella-Rae Smith. Dir.: Kate Cox (USA, 2022).

Eve. Cast: Julia Roberts, Lucas Hedges. Dir.: Peter Hedges (USA, 2018).

(Retour a Cold Mountain) Civil War Drama. A wounded soldier tries to return to his

lover who is struggling to keep her farm. Cast: Nicole Kidman, Renee Zellweger. Dir.: Anthony Minghella (USA 2003).

11:49 Ordinary Angels

Inspired by the incredible true story of a hairdresser who rallies an entire community to

help a widowed father save the life of his ill young daughter. Cast: Hilary Swank. Dir.: Jon Gunn (USA, 2024).

13:44 Wings of Desire Drama. An angel longs for the tangible joys of physical existence when he falls in love with a mortal. Cast: Bruno

Ganz, Solveig Dommartin. Dir.: Wim Wenders (German Republic, 1987).

15:48 Fathers and Daughters Drama. A Pulitzer-winning writer grapples with being a widower and father after a mental breakdown. Cast: Bus

mental Breakdown. Cast. Russell Crowe, Amanda Seyfried. Dir.: Gabriele Muccino (USA, 2016).

17:41 The Song of Names Drama. An Englishman travels throughout Europe to find his childhood friend, a violin prod-

igy, who disappeared on the

eye of his first sale concert

eve of his first solo concert. Cast: Tim Roth. Dir.: Francois Girard (Canada 2019)

19:31 Prisoners When a man's daughter and her friend go missing, he takes matters into his own hands. But how far will he go to protect his

family? With Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Terrence Howard (2013)

22:00 Lion Drama. A small child falls asleep on a train in India and reaches the big city. He is adopted by an Australian couple. With Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman:(2016)

23:55 The Zookeeper's Wife The account of keepers of the Warsaw Zoo, who helped save hundreds of peo-

ple and animals during the German invasion. Cast: Jessica Chastain, Daniel Bruhl. Dir.: Niki Caro (USA, 2017).

01:57 Baywatch The head lifeguard and his new recruits uncover a criminal plot. With Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron, Alexandra Daddario (2017)

06:00 Broadcasts will Resume Shortly Broadcasts will Resume Shortly. 06:17 Small Things Like

06:17 Small Things Like These Drama. In 1985 devoted father Bill Furlong discovers disturbing secrets kept by the

local convent and uncovers shocking truths of his own. Cast: Cillian Murphy. Dir.: Tim Mielants (Ireland, 2024).

07.53 Wings of Desire Drama. An angel longs for the tangible joys of physical existence when he falls in love with a mortal. Cast: Bruno

Ganz, Solveig Dommartin. Dir.: Wim Wenders (German Republic, 1987).

09:57 Once Upon My Mother Drama. A mother's unwavering devotion helps her son, born with a clubfoot in 1963,

overcome physical challenges and social barriers. Cast: Leila Bekhti. Dir.: Ken Scott (France, 2025).

11:37 The Life of David Gale Drama. When an anti-death penalty activist is wrongly sentenced to death for mur-

der, a reporter begins to question the justice system. With Kevin Spacey, Kate Winslet (2003)

13:43 Ben Is Back Drama. A drug addicted teenage boy shows up unexpectedly at his family's home on Christmas

Eve. Cast: Julia Roberts, Lucas Hedges. Dir.: Peter Hedges (USA, 2018).

15:24 Father & Soldier Drama. During World War I, a father enlists himself in the French Army in order to be

was recruited against his will. Cast: Omar Sy. Dir.: Mathieu Vadepied (France, 2022).

17.01 Landa Drama: A bereaved woman seeks out a new life, off the grid in Wyoming. Cast: Robin Wright, Demian Bichir. Dir.: Robin Wright (USA, 2021).

18:28 Jackie Following the assassination of president Kennedy, first lady Jacqueline Kennedy fights through grief and trauma to regain her faith.

console her children, and define her husband's legacy. With Natalie Portman (2016)

20:05 The Pursuit of Happyness A struggling salesman takes custody of his son as he's poised to begin a life-changing

22:00 Thank You for Your Service A group of U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq struggle to integrate back into famigle to integrate back into family and civilian life. Cast: Miles Teller, Haley Bennett. Dir.: Jason Hall (USA, 2017).

23:45 Prisoners When a man's daughter and her friend go missing, he takes matters into his own hands. But how far will he go to protect his

family? With Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Terrence Howard (2013)

02:13 The Smashing Machine Oscar-nominated biography. The story of mixed-martial arts and UFC champion, Mark Kerr, Cast:

woman, trapped in Islamic Iran by her brutish husband must find a way to escape with her daughter. With Sally Fueld, Alfred Molina (1991)

10:18 The Penguin Lessons A disillusioned Englishman who goes to work in a school in a divided Argentina in 1976

finds his life transformed when he rescues an orphaned pen-guin from the beach. Director: Peter Cattaneo. UK, 2024.

12:11 Akeelah and the Bee Eleven year-old Akeelah Anderson from South Los Angeles tries to make it to the National

Spelling Bee. Keke Palmer, Laurence Fishburne, Angela Bassett. Dir. Doug Atchison. USA, 2006.

14:05 Remember Me A romantic drama centered on two new lovers: Tyler, whose parents have split in the wake

Ally, who lives each day to the fullest. Cast: Robert Pattinson, Caitlyn Rund. Dir. Allen Coulter. 2010.

15:58 Ride Like A Girl The story of Michelle Payne, the first female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup. With: Teresa

Palmer, Sam Neill, Sullivan Stapleton. Director: Rachel Griffiths. Australia, 2019.

17:38 The Terminal An Eastern European immigrant who is stranded at JFK airport must take up temporary residence

Spielberg. (2004)

19:47 Bob Trevino Likes It A lonely young woman accidentally befriends a stranger online who shares the same

this new Bob could change her life. With: Barbie Ferreira, John Leguizamo. Dir: Tracie Laymon. USA, 2024.

21:30 Triumph A determined high-school senior strives one last time to be a wrestler

crushing obstacles and inspiring others along his journey to prove his abilities. 2021.

23:12 Widow Clicquot The story behind the Veuve Clicquot champagne family and business that began in the late

Business that began in the late 18th century. With: Haley Bennett, Tom Sturridge. Director: Thomas Napper. USA, 2024.

08:56 Cash Out Professional thief Mason attempts his biggest heist with his brother,

robbing a bank. When it goes wrong, they're trapped inside surrounded by law enforce-

ment. With: John Travolta, Kristin Davis. Dir. Randall Emmett. 2024.

10:28 High Rollers A master thief must pull off a dangerous casino heist when his nemesis kidnaps his lover. Caught

between rival criminals and FBI pursuit, he risks all to save her. With: John Travolta. Director: Randall Emmett. 2025.

12.10 Jurassic World

Dominion Four years after the destruction of Isla Nublar, Bio-syn operatives attempt to track down Maisie Lockwood, while

Dr Ellie Sattler investigates a genetically engineered swarm of giant insects. 2022.

14:36 Spider-Man After being bitten by a genetically modified spider, a shy high school student acquires superhuman spider like abilities that human spider-like abilities that he ultimately uses to fight evil. With Tobey Maguire (2002)

16:38 Icefall A young Native American game warden captures a notorious poacher only to learn that the poacher is aware of the location of a

plane carrying millions of dollars that has crashed in a frozen lake. 2025.

18:15 Bumblebee (2019) Sci-fi. On the run in the year of 1987, Bumblebee finds refuge in a junkyard in a small Californian beach town. With: Hailee

20:10 The Ice Road After a remote diamond mine collapses in far northern Canada, a 'big-rig' ice road driver must

sion over a frozen ocean to save the trapped miners. With: Liam Neeson. 2021.

22:00 Madame Web A New York paramedic begins to demonstrate signs of clairvoyance. Forced to challenge reve-

young women from a deadly adversary. With: Dakota Johnson. Dir. S.J. Clarkson 2024. 33:57 Parker A principled

23:37 Parker A principled thief seeks vengeance against the gang of criminals that left him for dead after a major

heist. With Jason Statham, Jennifer Lopez, Michael Chiklis (2012)

08:00 Memorial day 07.10

Commemorating 07.10 massacre and "Swords of Iron" war. Our broadcasts will resume at 20:00.

11:00 Memorial day 07.10

Commemorating 07.10 massacre and "Swords of Iron" war. Our broadcasts will resume at 20:00.

14:00 Memorial day 07.10

Commemorating 07.10 massacre and "Swords of Iron" war. Our broadcasts will resume at 20:00.

17:00 Memorial day 07.10

Commemorating 07.10 massacre and "Swords of Iron" war. Our broadcasts will resume at 20:00.

20:00 Skiptrace A detective from Hong Kong teams up with an American gambler to battle against a notorious Chinese criminal. With Jackie Chan, Johnny Knoxville (US-China, 2016)

21:48 Playing With Fire Comedy. A crew of rugged fire-fighters meet their match when alternating to move them

attempting to rescue three rambunctious kids. With: John Cena. Dir: Andy Fickman. 2019.

23:26 Ted As a childhood wish, John's sweet teddy-bear Ted came to life. Years later, Ted became a nightmare rui

Ted becomes a nightmare nuisance.. With Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis. 2012.

---

EUROSPORT

06:00 Olympic Games Hall Of Fame: Beijing 2008

07:00 Snooker Shenzhen Open

Open

09:00 Snooker Shenzhen

Open

12:00 Climbing World Series

13:30 Snooker Shenzhen

Open

14:30 Snooker Shenzhen Open

19:30 Climbing World Series

21:00 Snooker Shenzhen

Open

23:00 Trail Running World Series

01:00 Climbing World Series

02:30 Snooker Shenzhen

Open

04:00 FIM MX2 World Championship Rd 16: Netherlands - Race 2

05:00 FIM MXGP World Championship Rd 16: Netherlands - Race 2

Arts in wartime: A reporter's search for meaning

where they were visiting relatives.

A DESTROYED safe room in Kfar Aza in October 2023. 'At moments, I wondered if my work was futile: Did we even need arts coverage during this period?' asks the writer. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images)

REFLECTION

• By HANNAH BROWN

There were four cocktails I had never heard of at the bar that night – October 5, 2023 – and two of them were blue.

Trying to choose a drink at the awards ceremony of the Haifa International Film Festival was the defining “before-October 7” moment for me. I think all Israelis have a memory of that last “before” moment, when they still felt the world was normal.

I took one of the blue cocktails and sipped it while the winners were announced. Ironically, the award in the Israeli Feature Film Competition went to Dani Rosenberg's The Vanishing Soldier, about a traumatized soldier fighting a war in Gaza who goes AWOL and hides in Tel Aviv as the rest of the country, thinking he has been taken hostage, searches for him.

In a further irony, about six weeks later, Rosenberg would start filming Of Dogs and Men, about a girl from Kibbutz Nir Oz searching for her lost dog just weeks after the Hamas massacre.

Over the past three years, as an arts and culture writer, I have tried my best to cope with the events of October 7 by striking a balance between writing about newly released movies and television series and covering art that chronicled and honored those who were killed or taken hostage in the massacre and the war.

I did this while trying to make sense of what was happening.

At moments, I wondered if my work was futile: Did we even need arts coverage during this period? Why not another news page? But even in the panicked blur of October 7 itself, I started thinking about the most meaningful way I could help fill the arts pages.

First, I wanted to send David Brinn, who was then both the managing editor and the arts editor, as much material as possible as quickly as possible, so he could concentrate on the news.

I think the first article I wrote was about how people could get their money refunded for screenings on the last day of Haifa International Film Festival on October 7, which, of course, had been canceled.

After that, I thought about children. It looked as if they would be stuck at home till further notice, and as all parents know, uncertainty is hard for children to handle, as are frequent missile attacks, obviously.

During one of the trips to my building's bomb shelter on October 7, I heard a child of about five ask her mother, "Can we still go to the playground today?"

At that moment, about five hours into the attack, we had heard nothing from any government or military official. It seemed that the attack was confined to the South of the country, but nobody knew anything for sure.

"Not today," her mother answered. "What about tomorrow?" the girl asked, and the mother said she didn't know yet.

So, I spent part of October 7 disengaging from the news and going over all the children's content available in Israel. I wrote articles recommending movies and series that I hoped children of different ages would love. Many TV providers made their children's content free during this period.

THE OTHER option that occurred to me was museum websites. Many museums feature children's content on their websites. Some added live, online activities. I wrote about as many of them as I could.

At a certain point, I knew I needed to start recommending some kind of escapist content for adults. This was a much trickier proposition. I knew that many people would not want to see anything featuring graphic violence.

If people wanted to see blood and death, they could watch the news. So, I recommended the movies and series I turn to regularly as comfort viewing, like comfort food, which were available in Israel. The main parameter was: Does this movie or series feature people

I enjoy spending time with? Does it calm me?

But of course, it wasn't all escapism. I wanted to keep the hostages present on every page of the paper. The arts community, like every community, had suffered losses on October 7. I follow a number of Israeli talent agencies on Instagram, which often promote their clients' new projects. But the usual posts about this model's acting debut or that musician's new single were replaced by lists of funerals.

Quite a few of those who perished were trying to make it in the entertainment industry, like Tamar Goldenberg, an actress who had just gotten her big break, a role on the series Dismissed, but had not yet started filming. The producers dedicated an episode to her.

Yahav Winner, an independent filmmaker based in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, distracted Hamas terrorists so that his wife and baby daughter could escape, and he was killed. His last movie, The Boy, was released after his death and received an Ophir Award.

The cast and crew of Fauda, the series that depicts the exploits of the commandos in an Israeli counterterrorism unit, were directly affected by the war. Idan Amedi, an actor and singer who was one of its stars, was badly wounded fighting in Gaza.

Choosing to devote himself to his recovery and his music career, he opted out of appearing in the fifth season of the series, except for a wordless cameo.

Matan Meir, a member of Fauda's crew, was killed fighting in Gaza in November 2023, while Lior Waitzman, who worked in the sound department of Fauda, Tehran, and many other shows and movies, was murdered by terrorists in Sderot on October 7.

David Cunio, who had starred in Tom Shoval's 2013 movie, Youth, was kidnapped from Nir Oz along with his wife, daughters, and brother Ariel. Shoval made a documentary about him, A Letter to David, which he edited again after Cunio was released in October 2025.

IF ANYONE were to ask me what was the most difficult interview I ever did, I would not have to think for a second before answering, "Hen Avigdori."

Avigdori is a television writer who is smart, funny, and warm – so why was he such a difficult interview? Because when we spoke, his wife and 12-year-old daughter were being held by Hamas, after they were kidnapped from Kibbutz Be'eri,

I found it hard to pick up the phone and call him, although I knew he wanted to do an interview because I couldn't imagine how anyone in his position could speak calmly. But he was remarkably composed and articulate and said he welcomed the opportunity to keep his wife and daughter's names in the news.

His wife, Sharon, is a drama therapist for people on the autism spectrum, and because my son is on the spectrum and greatly benefited from having this kind of therapy, we spoke a little about her work.

I felt a certain relief in his voice, a happiness at being able to speak about her gifts and the work that she loves, instead of just about her as a victim. Sharon and Noam were released in the first hostage deal.

Gradually, movie theaters began to reopen, and some version of cultural life resumed. One of the first movies to open was Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, and I went to one of the first screenings in Jerusalem.

Many teen girls attended, some wearing sequined dresses and painting their nails every color of the rainbow in honor of seeing this movie featuring their idol.

I spoke to several of them, thinking it might make for a nice feature, but none felt comfortable giving me their names, and none were even old enough to consent to be quoted.

One said her brother was fighting in Gaza and that she had considered skipping the movie, which she had been looking forward to seeing for so long, but she was confident he would want her to enjoy herself. As we spoke, I felt that my questions were bringing them down, and I regretted approaching them.

Gradually, documentaries about the massacre were released, as well as feature films and series about the massacre and its aftermath, including Of Dogs and Men, Red Alert, and One Day in October.

Avi Nesher's latest film, Our Loves, which just opened at the Haifa International Film Festival, tells a very human story about several people who think they are having the worst day of their lives on October 6, 2023, and then must fight for survival the next day. It will open in theaters throughout Israel on October 15.

Looking back, I wish I had found even more ways to keep the October 7 victims on the culture page, and I hope I was able to help people entertain their children and find TV content that took their minds off the news.

Thinking again about the blue cocktail array on the night of October 5, 2023, I remember that before I left, I thanked the festival public-relations manager for inviting me. "See you next year," I said, and she replied with words that still echo in my mind: "I hope so, dear. But we never know what will happen."

Literary movement turns the grief of Oct. 7 into books

• By ILANA STUTLAND

When the scale of the October 7 massacre became clear, editor Dana Naomi Ben Shlomi watched news feeds flood with uniform, clinical digital boxes detailing the names and ranks of the fallen.

To her, these clinical notices felt like reducing a human life to a mere statistic.

"Every single one of them was an entire universe," Ben Shlomi recalls. "I knew we had to rescue their personal stories from those uniform digital boxes."

Ben Shlomi launched Kotvim Chaim (“writing life/living writers”), a grassroots initiative pairing bereaved families with writers, editors, and designers to preserve the legacies of those killed. They have shepherded 65 memorial books to publication, with another 135 currently in production.

This literary archive is currently taking center stage at the National Library for an exhibition and commemorative event titled Bound in Memory.

Among the newly published works is Hineni ("here I am"), a biography documenting the life of Supt. Dan Ganot.

Ganot was a 41-year-old deputy platoon commander in the Israel Police Directorate for Coordination of Enforcement Operations who rushed toward the unfolding massacre at Kibbutz Be'eri and never returned.

For his mother, Cheli Efrat Ganot, turning her son's life into a tangible book was an act of profound resistance against the finality of death. "The book is a continuation of Dan's path," Ganot says. "The most important thing to me is the message within it - giving, unconditional love and friendship."

Angelica Agabayev, a volunteer writer who knew Dan through mutual friends, penned the book. Translating raw trauma into a cohesive narrative proved to be a grueling journey, requiring a rare hybrid of journalistic rigor and deep psychological sensitivity.

"It wasn't simple," Agabayev admits. "Not everyone is ready to open up. Some would start talking and break down. You have to walk on eggshells to preserve the story exactly as it was."

Despite the heavy loss, Ganot has used the book as a springboard to reclaim her life, choosing to lecture youth groups about Dan's values.

"I chose life," Ganot says. "Dan sowed the strength in me to keep choosing life."

This is the exact transformation Ben Shlomi hoped to achieve.

"A bereaved family gets to choose the narrative of how their loved one will be remembered," she says. "In doing so, they keep their light burning."

The Bound in Memory exhibit it is on level -2 at the National Library of Israel. For more information, visit: nli.org.il/en/discover/books/7-october-books\*

Transforming a sister's loss into art for children

• By ILANA STUTLAND

YUVAL NAIM: You have to be patient with another person's way of coping. (Paulina Patimer)

For Yuval Naim, the grief of losing her younger sister, Agam, in the war is not a static sorrow but a shifting landscape. To process this new reality, the 28-year-old Jaffa resident has turned to the stage, channeling her family's heartbreak into a children's play titled Out of Three, One is Missing (Mishalosh Yotzet Achat), which premiered last week. Through a whimsical narrative about a hive of bees, Naim explores a heavy truth: There is no single, correct way to mourn.

"It was hard for me to cope with the grief. I told my psychologist I didn't know what to do. She replied, 'You're a creator – so create,' Naim said. "It made me realize that if I found it difficult to talk about Agam for the time being, I could express what I was going through through my art."

Naim is the eldest of three sisters who grew up in Pardes Hanna before moving to Kibbutz Mishmarot. Her sisters, Peleg and Agam, came after her.

"Agam was driven to excel in everything she touched," Naim recalled, sketching a portrait of a vibrant, deeply loved young woman. "She had so many different circles of friends – from her pre-military service year at the Edenim youth village to her intensive training as a combat paramedic. Even now, her friends still come to visit us. So many people loved her; she meant the world to so many."

ST.-SGT. AGAM NAIM

(Courtesy)

St.-Sgt. Agam Naim spent seven months deployed in Gaza. She had fulfilled her frontline duties and was scheduled to transition to a safe, prestigious instructional role – commanding and training the next generation of paramedics. She was never supposed to re-enter the conflict zone. Yet, driven by a fierce sense of duty and loyalty to her peers, she insisted on going back one final time.

“Mom would tell her that the difference between a score of 90 and 95 didn’t really matter anymore,” Naim said, “but Agam would reply that she was going to be treating people, so it was important.

It was during this final entry that Agam fell. On September 17, 2024, at just 20 years old, Agam was killed alongside four other combat soldiers when an explosive device detonated in Rafah's Tel Sultan neighborhood. She became the first female soldier killed in action during the ground operation in the Gaza Strip.

The tragedy in Out of Three, One is Missing is filtered through a metaphor accessible to children. The story follows three busy bees. When the third bee suddenly disappears, the remaining two are left to navigate the hive alone.

“Each of the two remaining bees copes with the disappearance of the third bee in a completely different way,” the playwright explained, detailing the invisible friction that can fracture a grieving family.

"One desperately wants to hold a ceremony, while the other does not. One wants to speak about the missing bee, but the other isn't ready to talk about her yet. One really wants to use laughter as a way to cope, while the other feels completely differently about it."

Despite the underlying gravity, Naim deliberately keeps the texture of the play light and comedic. Much of the action centers on a competitive nectar-gathering tournament.

"While the play certainly deals with the different ways we cope with loss, for the most part, it is light and funny," Naim said. "The bees are entirely caught up in a nectar-collecting competition that they are determined to win. They just aren't used to being only two yet, and that brings its own set of challenges."

The play serves as a lesson in empathy and radical patience. "The show demonstrates that you have to be patient with another person's distinct way of coping," Naim explained.

By translating her family's private pain into a universal fable, she hopes to give children the tools to understand their own emotional worlds. "The play seeks to provide children with a safe space to see themselves, to recognize the ways they navigate different hardships, and to understand that all coping mechanisms are legitimate," she explained.

As she moved through final rehearsals with her cast, Naim kept her eyes on a broader future for the project.

"I want as many children as possible to see this play," she said. "My aspiration is to bring it to one of the major children's theaters and to take it on the road to regional councils and schools."

In doing so, she ensures that while the family trio can never be whole again, Agam's spirit continues to teach, protect, and heal. Yet away from the theater lights, the personal journey of grief remains a daily, quiet battle for the older sister left behind.

"Sometimes," Naim reflected, "I still feel like my subconscious is just waiting for her to come back."