top of page

exposing the origins of antisemitism

Logo Image
Logo Clean.png
The fire-scorched wall of an empty house in Kfar Aza, near the Gaza border, with dry weeds in front and a pale sky above.

OCTOBER 7, 2023

On a Jewish holiday morning, Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel and took 251 hostages, in what has been called the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.

 

First published: September 29, 2026

 

 

 

On the morning of October 7, 2023, armed men led by Hamas crossed from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel. They attacked homes, farming communities, towns, army posts, and music festivals. About 1,200 people were killed, and 251 were taken back to Gaza as hostages.

 

Four days later, U.S. President Joe Biden told Jewish community leaders, "I would argue it's the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust." Encyclopaedia Britannica describes it the same way.

 

This site traces the origins and patterns of antisemitism. October 7 belongs in that history for two reasons. The group that led the attack wrote old conspiracy myths about Jews into its founding charter. And in the weeks that followed, Jews in countries far from the fighting were blamed and targeted for events they had no part in.

 

We mark this day to remember the people who were killed and taken, and to keep an accurate record of what happened.

 

The Morning of the Attack

The attack began at about 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, October 7, 2023. It was Shabbat and the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah. Many Israeli soldiers were on leave.

 

It opened with thousands of rockets fired from Gaza, at least 2,200 of them in the first 20 minutes, according to Britannica.

 

Under that rocket fire, thousands of armed men broke through the Gaza border fence at dozens of points. Others came by sea and by motorized paraglider. Israeli military estimates of how many crossed rose over time. In November 2023, the military put the number at about 3,000. In a later assessment reported in August 2024, it estimated that some 6,000 people crossed from Gaza that day.

 

Hamas's armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, led the attack. Human Rights Watch identified at least four other armed groups that took part.

 

About 1,200 people were killed, according to Israeli figures and Britannica. Most of them were civilians. They included children and dozens of foreign nationals, many of them workers from Thailand. Jewish Israelis were the largest group of victims, but Human Rights Watch notes that Palestinian citizens of Israel and people from many other countries were also killed or taken hostage.

 

The attack began a war in Gaza that lasted about two years and caused immense loss of life and destruction. A ceasefire took hold in October 2025.

 

Where It Happened

According to Human Rights Watch, the attackers struck at least 19 kibbutzim, five moshavim (cooperative communities), the towns of Sderot and Ofakim, two music festivals, and a beach party. Among the hardest-hit places:

 

  • The Nova music festival: An outdoor music festival held in a field near Kibbutz Re'im, about three kilometers from the Gaza border. According to Israeli social security data reported by AFP, 364 people were killed there. Attackers took 40 people hostage.

  • Be'eri: At least 97 civilians were killed in this kibbutz, and 30 people were taken hostage, including 10 children.

  • Nir Oz: At least 38 civilians were killed, and 75 people were taken hostage, including at least 15 children. It was the most hostages taken from any single site.

  • Kfar Aza: 46 civilians were killed in this kibbutz, according to Israeli social security data reported by AFP.

  • Other communities: Attackers also struck in and around Sderot, Nahal Oz, and Kissufim, among many other places along the border.

 

The Hostages

The attackers took 251 people to Gaza, including 39 children, according to Human Rights Watch. They included civilians and members of Israeli security forces. Some had already been killed on October 7, and their bodies were taken to Gaza.

 

The hostages came from many backgrounds. Britannica notes that, counting Israelis with dual citizenship, more than half held passports from about two dozen countries.

 

Hostages came home in stages over the next two years:

 

  • November 2023: During a seven-day pause in the fighting, 110 hostages were freed.

  • Early 2025: A ceasefire from January to March 2025 included more hostage releases.

  • October 13, 2025: The last 20 living hostages were released.

  • January 26, 2026: According to AJC, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed it had recovered the remains of the last hostage held in Gaza. This completed the account of all captives taken on October 7 and marked the first time since 2014 that no Israeli hostages were held in Gaza.

 

As of January 2026, no hostages taken on October 7 remain in Gaza.

 

What Investigators Found

Several independent bodies have examined the attack:

 

  • UN Commission of Inquiry, June 12, 2024: The commission found that Hamas's military wing and six other Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes, including "intentionally directing attacks against civilians, murder or wilful killing, torture" and "taking hostages, including children."

  • Human Rights Watch, July 17, 2024: Drawing on interviews with 144 people and more than 280 verified videos and photographs, Human Rights Watch found that killing civilians and taking hostages were "central aims of the planned attack." It concluded that these acts amounted to crimes against humanity.

  • UN mission on sexual violence, March 4, 2024: A UN mission led by Pramila Patten, the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, found "reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred in multiple locations, including rape and gang rape in at least three locations in southern Israel." It also found "clear and convincing information" that some hostages were subjected to sexual violence, including rape and sexualized torture. The mission was "not investigative in nature."

 

An Old Hatred in a Modern Charter

Hamas issued its founding charter, which it called a covenant, on August 18, 1988. Much of its language does not come from any modern conflict. It repeats antisemitic myths that are far older than the movement itself.

 

  • Article 7: The charter quotes a religious saying, or hadith: "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews)..."

  • Article 22: The charter claims that "with their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others." It says the same "enemies" were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution, and both world wars. As the BBC notes, the charter accuses Jews of controlling the world's media and of being behind revolutions and secret societies. This is the old myth of Jewish media control.

  • Article 32: The charter says, "Their plan is embodied in the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion'." The Protocols is a proven forgery.

 

None of these claims is true. They are the same conspiracy myths that blamed Jews for wars, revolutions, and hidden control long before 1988. The working definition of antisemitism used by the U.S. State Department lists "the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions" as an example of antisemitism.

 

In 2017, Hamas published a new policy document. It said Hamas's struggle is not with Jews but with "occupying Zionist aggressors." Hamas officials said the new document does not replace the 1988 charter.

 

​A Surge in Antisemitism Around the World

In the days after the attack, Jews in the United States, Britain, and elsewhere were harassed, threatened, and attacked for events far away. This is an old pattern: blaming all Jews, everywhere, for something they did not do. The working definition used by the State Department names "holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel" as antisemitism.

 

  • United States: The ADL recorded more than 10,000 antisemitic incidents in the U.S. from October 7, 2023, to September 24, 2024. It was the most in any one-year period since the ADL began tracking in 1979, and more than 200 percent above the same period a year before (3,325). The incidents included more than 8,015 cases of harassment, more than 1,840 of vandalism, and more than 150 physical assaults. The ADL describes these figures as preliminary.

  • United Kingdom: The Community Security Trust (CST) recorded 2,699 antisemitic incidents from October 7 to the end of 2023. That was more than in any previous full year it had recorded. Its total for 2023 was 4,103, the highest ever.

  • The first days: CST recorded its first incident linked to the attack at 12:55 p.m. on October 7 itself, when a car drove past a synagogue where people were celebrating Simchat Torah. It counted 416 incidents in the first week and 80 on October 11, its highest single day ever. CST found that the surge "started as soon as news of the Hamas attack became known and before Israel's military response in Gaza."

 

Criticizing Israel is not in itself antisemitic. The same working definition says that "criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic." The line is crossed when Jews as a people are blamed, threatened, or attacked for what a government does.

 

Denial and Distortion

Soon after the attack, some people began to deny or play down what happened. The ADL describes this denialism as "repeated attempts to cast doubt over the events of Oct. 7, its perpetrators, their methods, the nature of its victims, its scope, or Hamas' goals."

 

The ADL documents claims that the attack never took place, that Israel was mainly responsible for the killing, that no rapes took place, or that Israel fabricated evidence. The ADL warns that such claims fuel hostility toward Jews and Israelis around the world.

 

Accuracy matters on every side. Human Rights Watch notes that some media reports "minimized the extent of the abuses, while others included allegations of abuses that were later proven incorrect." AFP found that Israeli social security data confirmed "the unprecedented scale of the violence" but also challenged some early testimonies. The UN mission found that at least two widely reported claims of sexual violence in Be'eri were unfounded.

 

False claims, in either direction, hurt the victims. They give deniers an opening to dismiss everything. Careful, documented facts are the best way to honor the people who were killed and taken.

 

How October 7 Is Remembered

This site marks the anniversary on October 7.

 

In Israel, a law passed by the Knesset in July 2026 made 24 Tishrei, on the Hebrew calendar, an annual national day of remembrance. (The attack itself fell on 22 Tishrei.) The law provides for state ceremonies, flags at half-staff at state institutions, military bases, and police facilities, and a new Memorial Authority. It also calls for a national memorial site and a museum in the communities near the Gaza border, open to the public free of charge.

 

October 7, 2023, was a day of mass murder and hostage-taking, carried out in homes, at a festival, and on a holy day. It has been called the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. The charter of the group that led it, and the hatred that followed around the world, showed how old myths about Jews keep returning: that they control the media, that they are behind every war, and that all Jews share the blame for events far away. Remembering the victims means telling what happened carefully and truthfully, and refusing to let those old lies take root again.

 

Sources

 

​

Last updated: October 3, 2026

bottom of page