On Oct. 7, the Islamist militant movement Hamas launched a surprise attack, breaking through a supposedly secure border fence between Gaza and Israel in multiple locations. At least 1,300 people were killed in Israel, most of them civilians, with more than 3,000 injured. Current estimates suggest that roughly 150 to 200 hostages, including a number of children and elderly people, were captured alive by Hamas and taken into Gaza.
These attacks have been widely described as Israel’s equivalent to 9/11. In some ways, the historic weight may actually be greater: It appears that more Jewish people were killed on Oct. 7 than on any single day since the end of the Nazi Holocaust.
