Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Israel “will continue to fight” as the conflict in the Middle East raged while the world marked the first anniversary of the October 7 attacks.
Israel stepped up its air and ground offensive in Gaza with more strikes on Hamas militants and command posts on Monday as well as carrying out strikes targeting Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
In an address in the evening aired on domestic television as part of a October 7 memorial event Mr Netanyuahu said there was a need to continue fighting to "thwart any future threat against the state of Israel".
He says "a mountain of bereavement" had cast a shadow over Israel, before ending by saying: "Believe me, victory is the light."
Hamas marked the anniversary of its devastating cross-border assault by hitting Israel’s commercial capital Tel Aviv with a missile salvo, setting off sirens in central Israel and injuring two people.
Hezbollah, which began firing rockets at Israel on October 8 last year in support of its ally Hamas, vowed to keep up the barrages from Lebanon despite its recent losses.
Rockets from the Iran-backed militants hit Israel’s third largest city, Haifa, for the first time in nearly 20 years. The IDF said as many as 135 rockets had been fired across the border from Lebanon into Israel on Monday.
Yemen's Houthis, also backed by Iran, said that they fired two missiles at military targets in central Israel's Jaffa area.
While the Israeli military said it will soon launch operations on Lebanon's southern coast, telling residents to stay off the beaches and fishermen off the sea for a 36 mile stretch along the Mediterranean.
The war sparked by last year’s devastating attacks by Hamas, in which more than 1,200 people were killed and hundreds of hostages taken, continued as Israelis held sombre ceremonies to mark one year since the deadliest day in the country’s history and fears grow of a full-blown regional conflict.
Further commemorative events to remember the victims were held across the globe.
They were held to the backdrop of wars on two fronts that have ensued since the Hamas attack, with no end in sight.
As well as the Gaza conflict Israel is fighting an escalating war against Hezbollah.
US President Joe Biden, said “far too many civilians have suffered during this year of conflict”.
He said he will “not stop working to achieve a ceasefire deal in Gaza that brings the hostages home,” and said that a diplomatic solution in Lebanon is the only path to lasting peace.
Speaking in Parliament, Sir Keir Starmer pledged to use the "power of diplomacy" to "minimise the suffering on the ground" in the Middle East.
In a statement to the Commons on the anniversary of Hamas's attack, the Prime Minister said practical steps must be taken to “work towards that long-term solution so that a year of this terrible and bloody conflict can never happen again."
UK foreign secretary David Lammy told reporters on Monday: “This is a painful day for the Jewish community across this country and across the diaspora.”
He added: “It is a day of deep reflection and pain thinking about October 7, the worst attack on the Jewish community since the Holocaust.
“And of course, thinking about the many hostages that are still held in Gaza and their loved ones and their pain.
“And particularly we think of Emily Damari, the British hostage, and her family have no word of her fate or how she is doing.”
No formal commemorative event is planned in Gaza amid the fighting, with huge areas completely destroyed and most of the population have been driven from their homes.
A moment of silence was held at a memorial event at Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park, which has been organised by the families of the victims of the 7 October attack.
In Lebanon, meanwhile, an Israeli strike killed at least 10 firefighters, the latest in a series of strikes that have killed dozens of first responders, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
It said they were in a municipality building in the southern town of Baraachit that was hit as they prepared for a mission.
Meanwhile, Israelis flocked to ceremonies, cemeteries and memorial sites around the country, remembering the hundreds of victims, the dozens of hostages still in captivity and soldiers killed in battle. Commemorations were taking place across Europe and elsewhere.
As the October 7 attacks were marked the Israeli military revealed its intention to launch operations on Lebanon’s southern coast as its conflict with Hezbollah continued.
It did not specify what operations would be carried out.
Israeli forces have been carrying out intensified airstrikes across southern Lebanon and limited ground incursions near the border in a campaign against Hezbollah.
The statement told residents south of Lebanon's Awali River to stay off beaches and the sea for their safety.
The river empties into the Mediterranean about 60 kilometers (36 miles) north of the Israeli-Lebanese border.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack and abducted another 250.
Before dawn, hundreds of families of those killed at the Nova music festival, joined by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, gathered at the site where at least 364 revellers were killed and many others were taken hostage. As the sun rose, organisers played the same trance track that was abruptly halted when the barrage of rockets began.
At 6.29am local time (4.29am BST) - the exact minute Hamas launched its attack - the crowd observed a moment of silence. A woman’s piercing wail broke the quiet, while booms echoed from the fighting in Gaza, just a few miles away.
At 6.31am, four projectiles were launched from Gaza toward the same communities that came under attack last year, without disrupting the ceremony.
The military said another five rockets were launched from the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis toward central Israel, setting off air raid sirens in Tel Aviv.
Two women were lightly wounded, according to first responders, and there was minor damage. The military said it had struck the launch sites.
Meanwhile, the families of hostages still held in Gaza gathered near Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Jerusalem residence and stood during a two-minute siren.
“We are here to remind (the hostages) that we haven’t forgotten them,” said Shiri Albag, whose daughter Liri is among the captives. In a speech addressing Netanyahu, she said: “We wont let you rest until all of them are back, every last one of them.”
Mr Netanyahu, who has come under heavy criticism for the security lapses on October 7 and for not yet returning all the hostages, spoke at a small ceremony in Jerusalem, saying: “We went through a terrible massacre a year ago and we arose as a nation as lions.”
An official state ceremony was set to air on Monday. It was pre-recorded without an audience - apparently to avoid potential disruptions - in the southern city of Ofakim, which was among several communities and army bases that were attacked a year ago.
Anger at Mr Netanyahu’s government prompted families of those killed and taken captive to hold a separate event in Tel Aviv. That event had been set to draw tens of thousands of people but was scaled back due to the threat of missile attacks from Iran and Hezbollah.
Israel responded to the October 7 attack by launching one of the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns in recent history.
The war in Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, displaced most of the territory’s 2.3 million people and caused widespread hunger.
Hamas remains in control of the territory and its forces have repeatedly regrouped in areas where Israel carried out major operations.
On Sunday, Israeli forces encircled the northern town of Jabaliya and launched another major operation there that the military says is aimed at rooting out militants.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah has continued to fire rockets, missiles and drones at Israel even after a wave of Israeli strikes in recent weeks killed most of its top command - including long-time leader Hassan Nasrallah - and pounded large areas of Lebanon. Israel launched what has so far been a limited ground operation across the border last week.
At least 1,400 Lebanese, including civilians, medics and Hezbollah fighters, have been killed and 1.2 million driven from their homes. Israel says it aims to drive the militant group from its border so tens of thousands of Israeli citizens can return home.
Israel has also vowed to respond to a ballistic missile attack last week that Iran said was in response to the killing of Nasrallah, top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and one of its own Revolutionary Guard generals.
Hezbollah has vowed to continue its attacks until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, saying Israel “was and will remain a deadly, aggressive, cancerous gland that must be eliminated, no matter how long it takes”.
