Hamas Launches Deadliest Massacre of Jews Since the Holocaust

At 6:29 a.m. on October 7, 2023 — Simchat Torah and the Jewish Sabbath — Hamas launched a coordinated, multi-pronged assault on Israel from the Gaza Strip. The operation, named "Al-Aqsa Flood" by Hamas, was the product of over a year of planning.

The killing of civilians was not a by-product of an attack on military targets. It was ordered in writing, filmed, and celebrated:

• Written orders to kill civilians. Documents found on attackers' bodies at Kfar Sa'ad, obtained by NBC News, assigned squads to two elementary schools and a youth center, with instructions to "kill as many people as possible" and take hostages. Maps for Kfar Aza, Nahal Oz and Alumim were found too. Orders reported by Kan and the Times of Israel instructed squads at Alumim to maximize killing and take hostages, and at Re'im to kill civilians, take captives and burn homes, cars and fields.
• An attacker's own words. The IDF released a recording (Oct 24, 2023) of an attacker calling his parents from the phone of a woman he said he had just killed: "Look how many I killed with my own hands! Your son killed Jews!… Dad, ten with my own hands!" His father answers, "Oh my son, God bless you!" Israel's foreign minister played the recording at the UN Security Council. (Listen — News24) Reports differ on exactly where the call was placed.
• The attackers filmed themselves with body cameras and victims' phones, and posted footage — see Hamas Documents Its Own Atrocities.
• Hamas leaders afterward: senior official Ghazi Hamad told Lebanon's LBC (Oct 24, 2023) that Hamas would repeat the October 7 attack "again and again" until Israel is annihilated. See Hamas Leaders in Their Own Words.

• ~3,000–4,000 fighters from Hamas and allied groups (Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) breached the Gaza–Israel security barrier simultaneously at multiple points using bulldozers, motorcycles, paragliders, and tunnel exits.
• 22+ communities were attacked, including kibbutzim (Kfar Aza, Be'eri, Nir Oz, Kisufim, Alumim, Nahal Oz, and others), the Nova music festival, military bases at Re'im and Nahal Oz, and the towns of Sderot and Ofakim.
• Attackers carried detailed maps of each kibbutz, lists of residents by name, and had pre-assigned squads for specific homes.
• ~1,200 people were killed — about two-thirds of them civilians, including babies, children, the elderly, and foreign nationals from over 30 countries.
• 251 people were taken hostage into Gaza, including infants, children, the elderly, Thai agricultural workers, and citizens of France, Germany, the United States, Argentina, and other nations.

About 1,200 killed. Israel first reported ~1,400, then revised the figure down in November 2023 after some bodies were identified as attackers.

Israel's National Insurance Institute breakdown (December 2023), 1,139 identified dead:

• 695 Israeli civilians, including 36 children
• 71 foreign nationals, mostly civilian workers
• 373 security forces (soldiers, police and local security)

A UN Commission of Inquiry separately counted at least 809 civilians killed, including at least 280 women and 68 foreign nationals.

So roughly 770–840 civilians were killed — about two-thirds of the dead — most of them in their homes or at the Nova festival (the ~360 Nova victims are included in these totals, not in addition to them). 251 people were taken hostage.

Foreign governments — including the United States, France, Germany, Thailand and Nepal — confirmed their citizens among the dead and hostages, independently corroborating the toll.

The assault was not spontaneous. Recovered evidence includes:

• Printed maps of kibbutzim with resident names and home locations
• Training footage from Gaza showing Hamas fighters rehearsing the attack on mock kibbutz layouts
• Communications coordinating the multi-front assault recovered from killed attackers
• Hamas body cameras worn by fighters, providing video documentation (see: Hamas Documents Its Own Atrocities)
• A Hamas attack manual recovered by Israeli forces detailing objectives

The Wall Street Journal and New York Times independently verified through recovered documents and interviews that Hamas had planned the operation for over a year.

The United States, United Kingdom, European Union, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, and dozens of other nations condemned the attack as terrorism. U.S. President Biden said on October 7 that U.S. support for Israel's security was "rock solid and unwavering." U.S. officials described the scale as equivalent (proportionally) to approximately 15 simultaneous September 11 attacks on the United States.