Yolande Knell
Middle East correspondent, reporting from southern Israel

Zikim Beach, Israel’s southernmost coastal spot on the Mediterranean coast, saw 18 civilians and a soldier killed by Hamas naval commandos on 7 October 2023. But since reopening to the public - with memorials to the dead - a year ago, it has also become a place of healing.

Many traumatised survivors of the Hamas-led assault have embraced surfing therapy organised by the Israeli organisation HaGal Sheli.

"The first time I did it, I just got on my feet and it was like magic. I just wanted to do it again and again and again like a child," Achi Aharon, from kibbutz Nir Oz, tells me.

"It gives you so much life and sometimes you get into fights in the water but it’s amazing. The ocean is your therapist."

Ophyr Hanan, a spokeswoman for HaGal Sheli (My Wave), says its work has increased "exponentially" since the assault three years ago.

She expects Zikim to offer surfing therapy to some 7,500 people living close to Gaza, with people from Nir Oz typically surfing together.

"It's a coping tool and mechanism that that truly works," Ophyr says. "They’re clapping and cheering for each other when they catch a wave and supporting each other when they fall."

Image source, Bloomberg via Getty Images

Israel and countries around the world are marking three years since Hamas's attacks on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 more taken hostage.

If you're just joining us, here's the latest:

• Memorials in Israel began with a nationwide minute's silence at 06:29 local time (04:29 BST), to mark the time the attacks started - here's a reminder of what happened

• Bereaved relatives and friends have been paying tribute with their loved ones, while others have been calling for an independent inquiry into the 7 October attacks
• Families and survivors have also gathered at the site of the Nova Dance festival in southern Israel, where 378 people were killed by Hamas-led militants, including Ahuva Yavin Mayze's 21-year-old daughter Adi
• In Gaza, much of the population remains displaced since Israel launched an extensive military offensive in response to the attacks, killing at least 74,200 people, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health
• As our Gaza correspondent Rushdi Abualouf writes, families who have been displaced several times during the war are asking where they could go next
• Elsewhere, UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham, along with other world leaders, has paid tribute to the victims of the attacks and told Britain's Jewish community: "We stand with you"

In London, the Metropolitan Police says five people have been arrested for inciting racial hatred outside the Board of Deputies of British Jews building in Camden.

Police say the arrests were made at a "spontaneous protest", with offences "involving allegedly shouting or chanting slogans calling for intifada".

The suspects are in custody and the protest in Camden has ended, the force adds.

Lucy Manning
Special correspondent, reporting from central London

Image source, Getty Images

A pro-Palestinian demonstration is taking place in central London, ignoring a request by the Metropolitan Police for the march, organised by the University of London coalition, to be called off.

The Met said it would cause distress on a day of mourning and reflection and they were also worried about the impact on Jewish students and staff.

Some in the Jewish community have called for it to be banned but the Met said it didn’t have the grounds to ask the Home Secretary to ban it. Instead it asked the organisers to consider moving it to another day.

But a few hundred people are demonstrating and those involved say they are marching to protest against "three years of genocide" and to "fight for a liberated Palestine".

There are shouts of "Zionists not welcome here" and "Free Palestine from the river to the sea". There have been scuffles with pro-Israeli supporters who gathered to protest against their demonstration. Two pro-Palestinian demonstrators appeared to have been arrested.

The Met has set conditions on the march, including limiting the route and banning protestors from covering their faces to hide their identity.

There are other pro-Palestinian demonstrations planned at other universities. The Union of Jewish Students says the decision to protest on 7 October "is provocative, deliberate and must be condemned".

Image source, Family handout

Across Israel, bereaved relatives and friends are paying tribute to loved ones who were killed in the Hamas-led attacks.

"Today is a difficult day, not only for me but for a large part of the nation," said Shlomo Sharf, a former Israeli footballer, in comments reported by Channel 12. He was paying tribute to his 24-year-old granddaughter May Naim, who was killed at the Nova festival.

The Times of Israel has a tribute from former hostage Yarden Bibas, whose wife and two young sons died in captivity in Gaza. "Shiri, Ariel and Kfir. Sorry. Sorry that you are up there and I am here," the outlet quotes him.

Image source, AFP via Getty Images

Other bereaved and affected families are using the day to call for an independent inquiry into 7 October attacks.

"Even today, bereaved families are being neglected because no one cares," said Yoram Yehudi, whose son Ron also died at the Nova festival. "There is no accountability, and that is a basic requirement from the government," Channel 12 quote him as saying.

Einav Zangauker became an outspoken critic of the Netanyahu government while her son, Matan, was in captivity in Gaza - he was released last October as part of the ceasefire agreement.

“They’re trying to make us forget what happened on 7 October,” she told Army Radio. “We won’t forget, we will demand the truth."

As we reported earlier, families living in Gaza have been displaced several times during the war and are questioning where they could go next.

Atta Saeed Hassan Shweikh is originally from Al Shujjayia in Gaza. His son, daughter, sister and her children have all been killed during the war.

Speaking from Gaza City, he tells the BBC that Palestinians "are living in graves while still alive" and have endured "severe suffering".

"We need a solution so we can return to our homes today, not tomorrow," he adds.

Ahmad Atta Shweikh, from Al-Tuffah, says today's anniversary of the 7 October attacks "means misery, misery and suffering" and is an "especially difficult" day.

"We remember the horrors we witnessed, the destruction and devastation", he says, adding "our lives have been completely destroyed" and all of his family have been killed.

For Samira Abdullah Rizq Al-Wadiya, October 7 was the day she was displaced from her home in the Shuja'iyya area of Gaza City.

"Since the beginning of the war we have been displaced from place to place. We wouldn't even have 40 days of stability before being displaced again," she says.

It has been "suffering", Samira adds, explaining her children were killed in the war.

Yolande Knell
Middle East correspondent, at the Nova Festival site near Re'im, southern Israel

Image source, EPA/Shutterstock

Since sunrise, bereaved families and survivors have been gathering at the site of the Nova Dance festival in southern Israel.

On what was once a dance floor, there’s a memorial for the 378 people killed in the surprise cross-border attack – mostly young Israelis.

Each has photos and a story displayed. This was the site of the biggest single massacre on Israel’s deadliest-ever day.

Some 44 people were kidnapped here of whom only 25 were returned from Gaza alive.

This is the first anniversary of the 7 October attacks with no hostages remaining in Gaza. But last year’s US-brokered ceasefire deal has failed to deliver peace or bring security.

There’s been no end to Gaza’s deadliest ever war as Israel continues to carry out near-daily attacks. A few time this morning we have heard loud thuds - apparently the sound of Israeli demolitions or shelling from across the border.

Most of Gaza is in ruins, with nearly all the population displaced amid dire humanitarian conditions.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Reuters

Several events commemorating the anniversary of 7 October are taking place across the UK today.

A vigil organised by the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council will take place in London outside Downing Street at 17:00 BST.

It will feature speeches from various speakers, prayers, music and a reading of the names of British victims, while participants will also observe a moment of silence.

Derbyshire Jewish Community is also holding an online memorial from 19:00 BST, while a memorial service organised by The Movement for Progressive Judaism took place on Sunday 4 October.

Lucy Manning
Special correspondent

The Israeli Embassy in London has paid tribute to the British-Israeli victims killed on 7 October but warned that the atmosphere for Jewish people in the UK "continues to worsen".

It said there were demonstrations celebrating the attacks in the days after 7 October, that UK streets had been filled with "marches of hate" and Jewish people were facing intimidation and hatred in public, in schools, universities and online.

The embassy said while it values the longstanding friendship between Britain and Israel, it is "a source of deep sadness, that in the years since 7 October, the position of the British Government towards Israel has changed so substantially from the solidarity expressed in those first days".

In a social media post this morning, the Prime Minister said antisemitism in the UK wouldn't be tolerated and the country stood with the Jewish community.

Lucy Manning
Special correspondent

The former British-Israeli hostage Emily Damari has called on people to stand up to antisemitism and terrorism.

She was held as a hostage in Gaza for 471 days after being taken by Hamas gunmen from her home on 7 October. She was shot in her hand and leg.

In a video message, she thanked those who had campaigned for her release and asked people to remember what had happened on 7 October.

"Fifteen British citizens were killed that day, and another British hostage later died in captivity…It was not an accident; it was a planned terrorist attack.. And yet, even today, there are people who deny what happened, distort it, or simply choose to look away."

Damari said Jewish communities around the world had carried the pain of the last three years.

"In Britain, the Jewish community has faced rising anti-Semitism and have often felt afraid simply because they are Jewish…Please continue to stand against antisemitism and terrorism."

Image source, Emily Damari

Hamas has released a statement praising 7 October as a "historic milestone" in its "ongoing struggle project".

The statement, attributed to the group and disseminated in Palestinian media, calls the attack "a natural response" to "bitter suffering" imposed by Israel.

It says that the idea that the conflict with Israel began on 7 October 2023 is "a blatant falsification of reality and motives", and that it is not over yet.

Hamas accuses Israel of committing genocide - an accusation Israel denies, see more in our earlier post.

It says that almost 1,500 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since the ceasefire was agreed last October.

A separate Telegram post by the Al-Qassam Brigades - Hamas' military wing - features a stylised image of a paraglider flying through a demolished section of fence, referencing the paragliders who breached the Israeli border during the attacks three years ago.

Image source, AFP via Getty Images

Alongside UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham, other world leaders have shared tributes for the third anniversary of 7 October. Here are some of them:

• The Hamas-led attack marked a "profound rupture", says German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. "We commemorate the victims, we share their pain", he says, adding that antisemitism must be confronted with "even greater resolve"
• "We share the grief" of Israel and the bereaved and "do not forget the names and faces" of those who were killed, says French President Emmanuel Macron, affirming France's commitment to "combating antisemitism and terrorism"
• "The unspeakable savagery and terror of 7 October must never happen again," says Ursula von der Leyen, President of the EU Commission, adding that the EU "remains ready to help turn today’s fragile ceasefire into a durable peace, based on a two-state solution"
• Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson says it is "downright appalling" that Jews have "been forced to live with growing antisemitism" since 7 October. "We stand behind Sweden's Jews, and there we will remain," he says

A minute of silence is about to be observed across Israel at 12:00 local time (10:00 BST) to mark three years since the deadly 7 October attacks.

Earlier, a separate minute of silence was observed nationwide at 06:29 local time (04:29 BST) - the time when the Hamas-led attacks began.

Another minute's silence is expected later this evening.

Image source, EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

The deadliest incident in the Hamas-led 7 October attacks was at the Nova music festival.

Air raid alarms sounded at the trance music rave, which was taking place in the Negev desert not far from the Gaza Strip, at around 06:30 local time.

Not long after, Hamas-led militants stormed the area. They gunned down people attempting to flee by car or on foot, as well as people hiding in shelters along the highway.

Many that survived described hiding for hours or playing dead. Police reinforcements did not arrive at the site until 12:30 local time and the army didn't come for another two hours after that.

An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) probe found that 378 people were killed at the festival and 44 taken hostage.

Yolande Knell
Middle East correspondent, at the Nova Festival site near Re'im, southern Israel

"What happened here was not human," says Ahuva Yavin Mayze as she sweeps the stones around the memorial for her 21-year-old daughter, Adi.

We are standing on what was the dancefloor at the Nova Festival site three years ago. She tells me that bereaved families, survivors and former hostages taken from here - Israel’s single deadliest site on its deadliest ever day - are still suffering deep trauma.

"I’m a mother, I just know that my daughter, she was shot in the head and died instantly," Ahuva says. "But many parents who know what happened to their beloved ones, they cannot recover.

"The stories from here are dystopic, unimaginable."

During the 7 October attacks, heavily armed Hamas gunmen came across this dance party after breaking across the Gaza border.

Witnesses have described how festival-goers were shot, killed, raped and tortured. Many bodies were found mutilated.

A total of 378 people were killed here, mostly young Israelis. Forty-four were kidnapped, of whom 25 were brought back from Gaza alive.

Image source, Bloomberg via Getty Images

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham has paid tribute to "those who were senselessly killed by Hamas terrorists" on 7 October.

"The impact of the attacks has been felt not just in Israel, but in Jewish communities across the world who still bear the burden of the tragic events that day," he says in a social media post.

He says that a "disturbing rise in antisemitic behaviour in the UK" has been observed in the years since the attacks.

"I want Britain’s Jewish community to hear this from me directly. We stand with you. Abuse and violence against you, in any form, will not be tolerated," he says.

"An attack on Jewish people in Britain is an attack on all of us. Antisemitism has no place in this country, and we will do everything we can to stamp it out."

Rushdi Abualouf
Gaza correspondent

For ordinary Palestinians, the question of whether they can remain in Gaza is no longer an abstract political question.

Families who have already been displaced several times during the war increasingly ask where they could go next, and whether another displacement might eventually take them outside Gaza altogether.

Mohammed Emad al-Din, 38, a father of two who works as a barber in Gaza City, says he has been displaced five times since 7 October.

His home was destroyed and his barber shop was partially damaged. He tells the BBC the fear of being forced out of Gaza now follows him even into his dreams.

“I don’t believe Israel caused all this destruction for nothing,” he says. “They have turned Gaza into a place that is almost impossible to live in, and I fear that we will eventually end up outside the place where we were born.”

His fear is echoed in conversations across Gaza, where repeated displacement and the destruction of homes and livelihoods have left many people uncertain not only about where they will live next month, but whether they will ultimately be able to remain in the territory at all.

An art installation commemorating the victims of the 7 October attacks can be seen on a beach in Tel Aviv, Israel.

It features 1,200 human figures, referring to those killed on the day, near large Hebrew letters that spell "Total Failure".

It is unclear who organised the installation. As we reported earlier, there have been several anti-government protests taking place across the capital to mark today's anniversary.

Image source, EPA/Shutterstock

Image source, EPA/Shutterstock

Image source, EPA/Shutterstock

Lucy Williamson
Middle East correspondent, reporting from kibbutz Kfar Aza

Image source, Reuters

Crowds filed into the small cemetery at Kfar Aza, shoulders slung with rifles, or television cameras, or loaded with the weight of residents’ memories here.

In plastic chairs, under an awning shielding mourners from the sun, Israel’s former defence minister Yoav Gallant sat with kibbutz residents and listened as the names of all those killed here were read aloud, one by one.

Many senior defence and security officials have resigned or been fired since the attacks took place. But three years after Israel’s worst security failure, there has not been any independent state inquiry into what went wrong.

Image source, Reuters

Anti-government protesters have dyed the fountain in Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Square red to mark the anniversary of 7 October attacks.

The fountain has been used as a memorial site for victims of the attacks, with pictures, flowers and messages laid around the basin wall.

Protesters also blocked one of the main highways in Tel Aviv to hold a moment of silence for those killed on 7 October earlier this morning.

They held banners that read "the people will remember their sons and daughters" along with others that say "a complete failure" and "guilty" next to an image of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Anti-government groups in Israel, such as the October Council and the Kumu Movement, have been demanding a public inquiry into the 7 October attacks.

Image source, EPA