Image source, Reuters

Israelis have remembered the victims of the Hamas-led attacks in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage on 7 October, 2023.

Families and survivors gathered at the site of the Nova music festival, where 378 people were killed, from sunrise as others attended a national vigil in Tel Aviv. Events have also taken place around the world to mark the attacks.

A British-Israeli whose parents were both taken hostage told the BBC at a London vigil "you live through it in your body and your soul" on the anniversary of the attacks. Sharone Lifschitz's father was killed but her mother was later released.

In response to the attacks, Israel launched a military offensive in Gaza. More than 74,200 people have been killed by Israel in Gaza since the action began, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.

Speaking from Gaza City, one man told the BBC Palestinians have endured "severe suffering".

We are now ending our live coverage. You can read the story here.

Families and survivors in Israel gathered at the site of the Nova music festival from sunrise, as others attended a national, night-time memorial in Tel Aviv.

At 06:29 (04:29 BST) - the time Hamas launched its attack three years ago - a national minute's silence was held, with some Israelis stopping their cars in the middle of the road and stepping out of their vehicles to pay tribute.

Ceremonies have been taking place inside Israel and across the world. Brandenburg Gate has been illuminated with the Israeli national colours while a memorial was held outside Downing Street in London.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, EPA/Shutterstock

Image source, EPA/Shutterstock

Image source, Getty Images

Rushdi Abualouf
Gaza correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Large numbers of people continue to queue for food and water, while Gaza’s health system has been severely weakened.

According to information obtained by the BBC, there is currently no functioning MRI scanner in the Gaza Strip.

Only three CT scanners are operating for a population of more than two million people - roughly one machine for every 700,000 people.

Lubna Nassar, 59 a mother of five, who has been diagnosed with breast cancer, says she waited four months for a CT scan. But getting the scan did not mean getting the treatment she needed.

“Even after the tumour was diagnosed, I did not receive the necessary treatment. The doctor could only prescribe me some painkillers,” she says.

For many families, the struggle to obtain medical care, food, water and adequate shelter has become inseparable from a wider question about Gaza’s future whether life is sustainable in the long term.

Yogita Limaye
International correspondent

Image source, Reuters

Nearly a year since the ceasefire, Gaza’s civilians are living amid rubble and dust with the constant sound of Israeli drones flying overhead.

Israel’s military launches strikes almost every day and the overall death toll in Gaza since the war started in 2023 now stands at more than 74,000, according to the Hamas run health ministry.

Israel’s military says it’s targeting Hamas. It now occupies just under two thirds of Gaza.

The rest of the strip is tightly controlled by Hamas.

The group which triggered this latest round of violence with attacks that killed 1,200 Israeli people, has been consolidating its position despite many of its top leaders being killed.

It says it will not give up its weapons until Israel stops all forms of aggression.

And Israel says it will not withdraw its troops from Gaza until Hamas is genuinely disarmed, leading to an impasse that US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace has not been able to resolve.

Image source, Family handout

The mother of a 19-year-old soldier who was taken hostage and died in Gaza told the crowd at the memorial she saw her daughter days before the attack.

Adi Marciano said for 38 days she was stuck "between despair and hope, between death and life" as she wondered what had happened to her daughter Noa Marciano.

"Forty-five of you were taken alive and never came home," she added, turning her attention to the other hostages who were killed.

"They managed to survive for weeks and months in the darkness in fear, holding on with their nails for life waiting for someone to save them."

Marciano said she tries to "smile as if there is no tomorrow" as her daughter used to tell her to. "We are trying Noa. I miss you and I will continue loving you and waiting for you forever."

Image source, Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation via EVN

The event has now ended. Videos shown during the memorial remembered those killed during the 7 October attacks, including Karin Journo, who was killed at the Nova music festival.

Her mother said she remembered the day she was born, as well as "her little smile" as a child.

"I remember that moment that she said she was going to the party at Nova even though she had broken her leg," her mother said.

The widow of Haim Ben Aryeh, an Israeli bus driver who took his own life, said she remembered hearing "the first boom" early on the morning of 7 October.

She said she told her husband: "Please don't go, you don't know what's happening there."

She added he was in a "terrible emotional state" on the day, adding there was "total silence" all the way to the Dead Sea while he was evacuating children.

Stav Saudyan Nixon, the sister of Captain Sahar Saudyan, who was killed on 7 October, said she recalled her sister saying she had to "fight back".

She added it took three days for her parents to be told about her sister's death, saying it was "illogical" that she and her family were still alive and not her.

The crowd at the national memorial event in Tel Aviv can be seen comforting each other during performances, which are scheduled in between speeches remembering those who were killed on 7 October.

As a reminder, you can watch the event at the top of this page.

Image source, Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation via EVN

Image source, Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation via EVN

Image source, Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation via EVN

Image source, Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation via EVN

Image source, Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation via EVN

Image source, Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation via EVN

At the national memorial in Tel Aviv, co-host Shani Cohen says the families on 7 October screamed at "seeing their children being murdered".

Former hostage Eli Sharabi, also hosting the event, praises the work of the Israeli military, saying they "took the initiative" to help others on the day.

The pair pay tribute the late Israeli military commander Ido Shani, who told soldiers to defend where they could during the attack, before being ambushed and killed shortly afterwards.

Image source, Reuters

As the vigil in Tel Aviv continues, outside the White House US President Donald Trump has briefly spoken to the media.

He says he spoke to Benjamin Netanyahu and wished him and the people of Israel well.

"That was a horrible day, a horrible tragedy," he says.

"The other side is paying a very big price for what they did on October 7."

Speakers at the national memorial at Yarkon Park are now addressing the crowd.

Ido Yakir, from Kibbutz Magen, pays tribute to soldiers who "fought so bravely" on 7 October.

He says the country will remember everyone "who knew that they had to give their lives in order to save others".

Yakir fought against Hamas on the morning of the 7 October attacks, and prevented them from penetrating the kibbutz, the hosts say.

The speeches are now being followed by a performance by Israeli musicians Noam Bettan and Yuval Dayan, who are singing to the crowd.

Image source, Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation via EVN

A national memorial is taking place at Yarkon Park in Tel Aviv, organised by a grassroots movement of survivors and bereaved families.

The event is being co-hosted by former hostage Eli Sharabi, who lost his wife and two daughters on 7 October.

You can watch the event live on the stream at the top of the page.

Image source, Reuters

The United Nations and European Union has estimated that $71.4bn (£54bn) is need over the next decade to help with the full recovery and reconstruction of Gaza.

The Gaza Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA) in April said $26.3bn (£19.9bn) will be needed in the first 18 months to restore essential services, rebuild critical infrastructure and support economic recovery.

The report estimates that since the full scale war erupted in Gaza following the 7 October attacks, the physical damage to the Gaza strip is estimated at $35.2bn (£26.6bn) with a further $22.7bn (£17.2bn) in economic and social losses.

Last month, US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace announced a $2.45bn (£1.85bn) Gaza recovery plan directed at areas such as housing, diesel generation and waste removal.

The board has not set out a date for the start of reconstruction in Gaza where Trump's plan to end the war has largely stalled almost a year after Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire.

Image source, EPA/Shutterstock

Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party says the Israeli prime minister had "no advance warning" about a Hamas attack from Gaza or by Hamas, in a social media post responding to local media reports today.

The post, published on Netanyahu's X account, said the reports were "false political propaganda" and that he was first briefed about the attack at 06:29 (04:29 BST) on the day the war broke out three years ago.

The assertion follows repeated denials by his office that he had received warnings, accusing similar reporting of being lies.

Lucy Williamson
Middle East correspondent, reporting from reporting from kibbutz Kfar Aza

Image source, Reuters

As the sky began to lighten over Israel's border with Gaza on Wednesday, the people of Kfar Aza moved silently towards the armoury at the centre of the kibbutz.

It was there, shortly after 07:00 on 7 October 2023, that Hamas-led attackers killed half the community's 14-member civil defence squad. They were among 64 killed and 19 kidnapped from the community that day.

The pain of those attacks is still fresh here. But three years on, there are questions about who else should pay the price for Israel's security failure.

"I need my country to take responsibility," said Inbar Goldstein, whose brother and niece were killed, and four other relatives kidnapped from Kfar Aza.

Three years on from Israel's biggest security failure, there is still no independent state inquiry into how it was allowed to happen.

And the man in charge at the time of that failure - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - is running for election again, with the same campaign promise: to be stronger and tougher than anyone else in protecting Israel from its enemies.

Aside from Hamas's responsibility for the attack itself, there are growing questions in Israel around what caused the country's intelligence failure, what information was passed to military and political leaders in the run-up to the attacks, and what Netanyahu himself knew.

Over the past three years, there have been mounting reports of warnings being given to Netanyahu - by his own security chief, as well as by regional neighbours - which he denies.

Last month, Israel's Haaretz newspaper published extracts from a new book, alleging that the leader of the United Arab Emirates had called Netanyahu 10 days before the attack to warn of Hamas plans for a major operation.

Netanyahu's office has dismissed the report as "an absolute lie" and has said he will sue the newspaper.

Read the full story here

Image source, Reuters

A memorial ceremony and concert has been taking place in Re'im, where the Nova music festival was.

Dozens were taken hostage and 378 people were killed at the festival during the 7 October attacks.

Pictures of the victims of the attack were displayed on screen at the memorial concert.

Israel's President Isaac Herzog was among the speakers at the event.

Families and survivors have been gathering at the site in southern Israel since sunrise.

Sharone Lifschitz, a British-Israeli from east London whose parents were taken hostage, tells the BBC’s Lucy Manning it is "hard to describe" her feelings on the third anniversary of the 7 October attacks.

"You live through it in your body and your soul," she says.

As reported in our earlier post, Lifschitz’s father was killed but her mother was later released.

She says, above all, she is "grateful that all the hostages are back home". Although her father did not survive, she says "at least we know his fate and we know he is not suffering anymore".

Asked how she feels as a British Jew in the aftermath of 7 October, she says she is "rattled".

"As someone who has every reason to hate… I feel so strongly that hate and violence do not take us anywhere," she says.

Asked how she sees the future of the region, she says she wants diplomatic agreements to be reached so that people’s children and grandchildren will "not suffer the fate of this generation".

Lucy Manning
Special correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Since 7 October British Jews have faced an upsurge in antisemtism with physical and verbal attacks on the streets, at universities, in workplaces and online.

Last year two Jewish men attending Heaton Park synagogue on Yom Kippur were killed after an attack by 35-year-old Jihad Al-Shamie.

Two Jewish men were stabbed in Golders Green in April and last week two men were charged with terror offences alleged to be against Manchester’s Jewish community.

The President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews Phil Rosenberg, whose offices were the target of a pro-Palestinian demonstration leading to five arrests this morning, told the vigil: “This is not just a Jewish problem but a British problem.

"If a proudly British community, who have made and continue to make a massive contribution can be targeted in this way, what hope is there for this country? We need to see a response that is not timid, that is forceful and firm. This is not just a fight for Jews but for Britain itself.”

Days after the Green Party voted to equate Zionism with racism, Keith Black, the Chair of the Jewish Leadership Council, said to applause: “British Jewry is a Zionist community. We stand with Israel. We will stand with you forever more and this day will stay in our hearts.”

The prime minister has said he stood with the Jewish community but many British Jews feel despair and anger that they can’t live peacefully as Jews in the UK.

Lucy Manning
Special correspondent

The British Jewish community are holding a vigil outside Downing Street to remember the 1,200 people who were murdered on 7 October in Israel.

Those attending hold up pictures of British-Israelis who were killed in their homes, at the Nova festival, fighting Hamas or after being taken hostage.

They include: Lianne, Noiya and Yahel Sharabi, Yannai and Liel Hetzroni-Heller, Jake Marlowe, Bernard Cowan, Aner Shapiro, Nathanel Young, Yoni Rapoport, Rotem Kalderon, Danny Darlington, Debbie Abraham, Benji Trakeniski, Yosef Guedalia, and Roi and Nadav Popplewell.

Sharone Lifschitz, a British-Israeli from east London, mourned her father Oded, a peace activist, who was killed after Hamas took him hostage. Her mother Yochoved was also kidnapped and later released.

She told the vigil, which was attended by politicians including Communities Secretary Angela Rayner, about her father’s last moments in captivity.

"He did not break. He looked for my mum in any way he could, and then he was in a room with another hostage. Two frail, injured old people in a hostile place, and they shared real compassion between them. They shared real good words and good deeds, and helped each other to the last moment… May we all, as individuals, our communities, our countries, remember this lesson.”

A woman who was held hostage in Gaza for 54 days says she feels as though the assault was "a day ago".

Moran Stella Yanai tells BBC News the "senses are coming back to my body" after recalling the attack in the lead-up to the three-year 7 October anniversary.

"My legs were shivering today," she adds. "The reactions are similar to that day."

She recalls how "happiness turned into horror" at the Nova music festival. Moran says once she was taken to Gaza she was left in "constant fear, 24-7" that something was going to happen to her and an 18-year-old girl she was held hostage with.

She says she "paused" her life and only started to heal again when the last hostage was returned to Israel.

Now she says she is discovering who she is again at the age of 43. "I think I am learning every single day a little bit more and more," she says.

A memorial is currently taking place in Re'im in southern Israel, where Hamas-led fighters attacked the Nova music festival on 7 October.

You can watch the memorial live at the top of the page.

Shortly we will bring you live footage of a vigil in central London, which is taking place outside Downing Street.