Israelis mourn the victims of the Nova festival masscare (Image: Rowan Griffiths)
Several thousand mourners attended a moving ceremony at the Nova festival massacre site at dawn this morning – marking one year on since the first terror attacks.
At exactly 6.29am local time families and friends of some 360 slaughtered and others marked the solemn event, lighting candles and honouring loved one’s pictures.
This was the exact time the Nova festival became ’s ‘ground zero’ as the opening rockets from Gaza flew above and half an hour later gunmen arrived and started killing.
For some, grim memories of Hamas gunmen marauding outside Gaza, slaughtering people in their path flooded back this morning, with the sound of gunfire and artillery close-by.
Heavy machine gunfire broke out every now and then, a sign the battle in Gaza is still very much been fought.
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Today marks one year since the October 7 attacks (Image: Rowan Griffiths)
Sounds of gunfire could be heard as the memorial took place (Image: Rowan Griffiths)
The deafening percussion of war in the background, with Gaza just three miles from us, the deeply moving event helped some and triggered others with aching heartache.
Even now, exactly a year on, Israeli troops are battling Hamas in the Strip, Israeli artillery and mortars fired into the Strip from just a few hundred yards from us.
A woman dressed all in black wept openly, wailing with pain as she hugged and kissed pictures of her fallen loved ones, Nitzan Goldenberg and Yarin Efraim.
At exactly 6.30, a minute into the one year anniversary of the slaughter here, the IDF opened up with large scale artillery fire from nearby and into Gaza as a show of defiance.
The British mother of slain Jake Marlowe, who died aged 26, spoke to us as she set up her son’s memorial at the site, a common which is flanked by woodland.
London-born Jake was an unarmed security guard at the festival and called his mum in the UK as the music event came under attack from Gaza’s Hamas gunmen and rocket teams at 6.29am.
His mother Lisa (no age) told us: “I have been back here five times now to remember Jake and it does not get any easier. I feel close to him here though.
“He called us at around 6.30 Israeli time telling us the rockets were flying above but he assured us he would be okay. We now know that he was not. He told us he loved us and that he would be in touch. We called him back but we were getting no answer.
“It was four days before we found out what had happened to him. He was missing for that long – and I miss him so much. This is absolutely horrendous, it’s beyond imagination.”
President Benjamin Netanyahu was not there but Israeli President Isaac Herzog turned up and joined the throng saying comforting words to grieving families.
Later he toured the Gaza Envelope, an area surrounding the now war-battered Palestinian enclave, visiting villages and kibbutzim to comfort the grieving who are still suffering their loss.
Mourners wept as they remembered the tragedy (Image: Rowan Griffiths)
Israeli lady Michal, 52, was here to mark a year on since her daughter Amit Lahav, who died aged 23, was murdered with her two friends at the festival.
Close by her husband and Amit’s father Jackie stood solemnly and lovingly staring in thought at their daughter’s photo.
Michal told the Daily Mirror: “We are here with Amit’s two grandmothers, her brothers and her father to remember our Amit who was celebrating being accepted to study computer science. She came here to be happy and enjoy herself with friends but she was killed along with both of them.
“She was missing for five days and I was terrified and desperately worried. I almost hoped she had been kidnapped and not killed but then we heard the truth.
“At 7-30 she called us and said she could not get out, or that they were not allowed out of where she and we were unsure what was happening.”
Then the family horror began as mother Michal called her daughter back, by now desperately worried and heard the voice of Hamas.
She told us: “When I called her back an Arab voice answered the phone – and he just laughed.
“I was sure she had been kidnapped but not this.
“She has brothers, one of whom is 21 and he is a soldier.
“I cannot say where he is at the moment.
“This is such a terribly sad day, we are all struggling with it but we wanted to be here.”
As we say our condolences and tell Michal, who is close to tears, that we appreciate her talking to us an how sorry we are for her loss she tells us: “It is true that we are all having a very hard time here.
“But I want to talk about Amit. I want to keep her name in existence forever.”
As we left another woman in back was weeping uncontrollably at the site of her loved ones’ memorial photo.
A uniformed soldier with an MI6 assault rifle was hugging his girlfriend, perhaps before rejoining one of ’s frontlines.
And the deafening sound of artillery nearby kept bursting the mournful atmosphere – reminding everyone that is still at war a year on.