JERUSALEM — Three years after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, Israel is “stronger than ever,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a memorial ceremony on Monday, adding that “even now, the terrible hours of the Simchat Torah massacre are seared into us.”

The premier spoke at a state memorial ceremony at the Great Leaders of the Nation Memorial Park on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, where he honored Israel Defense Forces soldiers and members of the security forces slain in the Oct. 7 massacre and the ensuing War of Redemption.

“Anyone who was involved in the attack against us and held our hostages is living on borrowed time,” he warned. “Day by day, we are settling accounts with these despicable murderers.”

He vowed that there would be no Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip.

“Our soldiers and commanders cut off the arms of terror,” the prime minister said. “We pushed back our enemies and created deterrent buffer zones in their territories.”

Netanyahu said Israel had fought back on “seven fronts,” characterizing the Oct. 7 attack as the opening move in an Iranian-led plan to destroy the Jewish state. He said Israeli forces had struck Iran’s ballistic-missile capabilities and dealt a severe blow to its nuclear program, and pledged that Israel would not allow Iran’s regime to threaten the country’s existence. He described Tehran as weaker than at any point since the Islamic Republic’s establishment.

“In Lebanon, we will continue to strike Hezbollah and create the possibility of peace with a country whose overwhelming majority wants peace with us,” he said.

Turning to the fallen, Netanyahu said Israeli soldiers and security personnel had blocked “with their bodies” those seeking to destroy the country. He highlighted Col. Assaf Hamami, the highest-ranking IDF officer slain on Oct. 7, who was killed fighting Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, whose remains were taken to Gaza and later returned to Israel for burial.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog reflected Monday on three years of bereavement, injury, displacement and uncertainty since Oct. 7, while praising the strength and solidarity shown by Israeli society.

“Amid all this, we also saw the strength that this remarkable people knows how to summon,” Herzog said at the state memorial ceremony at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. “We saw Israelis who rose from their pain to help others. We saw Israelis who extended a hand, and found another hand reaching back.”

Herzog said Israel had experienced “unfathomable lows” alongside “unfathomable heights” during the war, citing the return of hostages — some to rebuild their lives and others, he said, “heartbreakingly,” for burial in Israel.

He mourned the loss of “so many of the finest” Israelis from across the country’s communities and backgrounds, saying their stories must be remembered. He also highlighted citizens who returned to rebuild, plant and harvest after being forced from their homes.

Herzog also honored the surveillance soldiers at the Nahal Oz outpost, calling them “the eyes of the IDF and the state.” He stated that they identified terrorists approaching the border at 6:29 a.m. on Oct. 7 and continued reporting as the attack reached them.

Day of remembrance marks moment of attack

JERUSALEM — Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Monday opened the national day of remembrance for Oct. 7, 2023, by lowering the Israeli flag at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem to half-mast at 6:29 a.m.— the exact minute the attack began.

He said that the flag-lowering was “a sign of remembrance and honor for the murdered and the fallen in the terror attack of Oct. 7 and the ‘Swords of Iron’ War,” adding in an X post that Israel remembers “the women, the men, the children, the infants, the elderly, the civilians and the soldiers who were murdered and fell in the terror attack and war.

“On this day, we also salute everyone who was wounded in body and soul and bear the wounds of Oct. 7 and the war—even in these days,” his statement concluded.

Flags at the Knesset were also lowered to half-staff at 6:29 a.m. in a ceremony attended by senior parliamentary leadership, who laid wreaths at the plaza’s monuments commemorating fallen soldiers and victims of hostile acts.

The National Remembrance Day for the October 7 Disaster and Swords of Iron War is observed annually on the Hebrew date of Tishrei 24 (shifting to the 25th if it falls on Shabbat), which corresponds this year to Monday, Oct. 5, marking three years since the 2023 attacks.

— Joshua Marks, JNS.org