Three years on, families return to the Nova site

Israelis began commemorations on Wednesday for the victims of the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage. This year's anniversary is the first at which all the hostages, or their remains, are home.

Family members bowed their heads quietly at the Nova music festival site, though at least one played techno music in tribute to the fallen - the spot where Hamas militants in trucks and paragliders opened fire around dawn on October 7, 2023. Loud bangs from across the border in Gaza were audible from the site as families gathered at dawn to mourn the more than 300 revellers killed there three years earlier.

• •Katia Zohar, whose daughter Bar Zohar was killed at 23, described the attack's start at 6:29 am (0329 GMT) as "the minute that changed our lives forever". She said she sadly remembers everything, recalling her daughter calling twice during the attack: first to be picked up because there were missiles in the air, then screaming that she was being shot at on the road.
• •Aner Shapira was 22 when he threw seven grenades back towards Hamas fighters during the attacks, before an eighth exploded in his hands and killed him. His parents, Shira and Moshe Shapira, said they can still feel his presence three years on, and that time does not heal but they are learning how to live with their loss.

Anna Davitashvili, 53, played the last techno track that partygoers had been dancing to when the attack began - a tribute to her eldest son Shaun, who was killed at 25 at Nova alongside his friends. She said she feels him at the site.

In Berlin on October 7, 2026, a person carried an Israeli flag bearing the message "Don't forget", while a symbolic installation depicting a destroyed living room was on display.

Election framed as referendum on Netanyahu after October 7

After a string of resignations by top security officials, Benjamin Netanyahu stands as the only senior figure from October 7 still in office - which, AP notes, makes the coming election in many ways a referendum on his leadership. International affairs editor Kethevane Gorjestani reported that the accusations against Netanyahu over his failure to stop the Hamas attack threatened to poison his campaign, particularly once reports emerged suggesting the United Arab Emirates and Egypt had warned him of imminent danger.

• •Opponents from across the political spectrum label his outgoing coalition "the massacre government"; Netanyahu, for his part, says he has led a "war of redemption".
• •He has rejected, time and again, calls for a commission of inquiry while seeking to shift the blame onto security officials.
• •He recently accused the then-head of the Shin Bet security service, Ronen Bar, of withholding information ahead of the attack - prompting Bar to threaten a defamation lawsuit.
• •Netanyahu has denied the American media reports that the United Arab Emirates and Egypt warned him ahead of October 7.

Gaza strikes, West Bank killing and London arrests

Israel carried out new strikes in Gaza on the anniversary, with Palestinian officials reporting three people dead.

• •Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City reported two people killed in an Israeli strike overnight; Gaza's civil defence identified one of the dead as Mohamed Tamous, a volunteer for the agency, which serves as an emergency rescue service under Hamas.
• •Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis said Hisham Ibrahim Abu Mustafa, a 60-year-old man, was killed in an Israeli strike and that others were injured.

In the northern West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said 44-year-old Ali al-Bazzari died and nine others were injured in an assault by occupation forces and settlers on Burqa, a village north of Nablus. Israel's military said it was looking into the incident, according to AFP. An obituary published on Wednesday said al-Bazzari was a member of the Palestinian National Security Forces.

In London, police arrested five people during a pro-Palestine student demonstration, the PA news agency reports. Despite calls to ban or postpone it, around a hundred people marched in central London chanting "Freedom, freedom for Palestine" and "Freedom for the people, freedom for the land". One group held a banner reading "Descendants of Holocaust survivors against the genocide in Gaza". Officers said the arrests were made on suspicion of incitement to racial hatred.

Aden airport hit, Iranian cash to Hezbollah, Hormuz warning

Yemen's Transport Ministry said the Houthis attacked Aden's international airport with ballistic missiles and explosive-laden drones on Wednesday, as fighting between the Iran-aligned group and Saudi-backed government forces intensified. In recent days the fighting has focused on areas around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a route that has grown more crucial for energy exports since the conflict between the US and Iran restricted trade through the Strait of Hormuz.

Hezbollah has received $200 million from Iran to help Lebanese displaced by this year's war with Israel, two people with direct knowledge of the transfer told Reuters. The cash reached the group last month despite a tightening US economic chokehold on Iran and growing difficulties in getting funds to Tehran's Lebanese ally. Intermediaries who moved the money charged a 20% fee - four times the normal rate, one source said - reflecting the risks of dealing with the group.

• •The UN's International Organization for Migration said on Wednesday that more than 200,000 people had been displaced from their homes since fighting in Yemen began in recent weeks, up from 76,000 in mid-September - a surge it described as alarming, with nearly all fleeing since the fighting began in early September.
• •Mohammadreza Naqdi, an adviser to the Revolutionary Guards' commander, said transit routes in the Strait of Hormuz deemed illegal by Iran would soon be closed, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Wednesday. He said the routes had been created by blasting and damaging rocky passages in the waterway and were used by small boats smuggling oil, challenging the narrative that Gulf oil flows are regaining pre-war levels.

A Hezbollah official, asked for comment, said an amount had been secured and that a plan for distributing it would be announced in the coming days, giving no hint of where the money came from.