What we know
- Scores of people assembled in a park in Tel Aviv this evening to mark the anniversary of Hamas' Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and led to 250 others' being taken hostage, according to Israeli officials.
- The Israel Defense Forces issued evacuation warnings for roughly one-quarter of Lebanon's coastline, as well as much of northern Gaza, in what appeared to be major new offensives.
- More than 41,800 people have been killed in Israel's yearlong assault on the Palestinian enclave, including more than 16,000 children, local officials say. Hamas today hailed its attack a year ago, firing rockets at Tel Aviv.
- More than 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon since Oct. 8, the majority dying in the last few weeks, according to Lebanese officials.
Hamas will rise ‘like a phoenix’ from the ashes, exiled leader says
Hamas leader-in-exile Khaled Meshaal said that the Palestinian group would rise “like a phoenix” from the ashes despite heavy losses during a year of war with Israel and that it continues to recruit fighters and manufacture weapons.
One year after the Hamas attack that triggered the war, Meshaal framed the conflict with Israel as part of a broader narrative spanning 76 years, dating to what Palestinians call the “Nakba,” or “catastrophe,” when many were displaced during the 1948 war that accompanied the creation of Israel.
“Palestinian history is made of cycles,” Meshaal, 68, a senior Hamas figure under overall leader Yahya Sinwar, told Reuters in an interview.
“We go through phases where we lose martyrs [victims] and we lose part of our military capabilities, but then the Palestinian spirit rises again, like the phoenix, thanks to God.”
Meshaal, who was overall Hamas leader from 1996 to 2017 and survived an Israeli assassination attempt in 1997 after he was injected with poison, said the group was still able to mount ambushes against Israeli troops.
Hamas also fired four missiles at Gaza this morning. All were intercepted.
“We lost part of our ammunition and weapons, but Hamas is still recruiting young men and continues to manufacture a significant portion of its ammunition and weapons,” Meshaal said, without providing details.
Meshaal remains influential in Hamas because he has played a crucial role in its leadership for almost three decades and is widely seen now as its diplomatic face. His comments appear to be intended as a signal that the group will fight on whatever its losses, Middle East analysts said.
Students divide over display with contrasting Oct. 7 events on Maryland campus
Reporting from College Park, Md.
Contrasting Oct. 7 anniversary events held by pro-Palestinian and Jewish students at the University of Maryland were calm and peaceful — but the divide between them seemed wider than ever.
After a federal judge ruled the university couldn’t prevent pro-Palestinian students from holding a vigil today because of safety concerns, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) gathered yards from Maryland Hillel’s Hostage Square Memorial. The reaction to the former’s presence on the anniversary of Hamas’ terrorist attack against Israel was mixed.
“I think it’s really sick to do something like that, especially when you have all the other days in the year to mourn the lost lives of Palestinians but we have today,” said Jewish student Alexis Chavez, who has relatives in Israel.
Junior Rivka Silinsky called today’s SJP events “absolutely egregious.”
“I think it’s the equivalent of KKK protesters going around a school that has a quarter of Black students and saying, hey, I have a freedom of speech,” she said.
Sophomore Shamai Frenkel said he respects freedom of speech but also feels empathetic toward both groups of students hurting from events before and after the Oct. 7 terrorist attack.
“It’s been very sad to me to see how a war very far away, even though it’s very real and that suffering is very real, can tear apart people that should be very close,” he said.
At the SJP community gathering ahead of the evening’s vigil, board member Daniela Colombi told NBC News that today marks a year of an “escalated genocide” after 76 years of occupation.
“It’s just really critical that we don’t allow the day to be monopolized by one viewpoint,” she said. “It would be a betrayal of our humanity to erase the genocide like that, like that is genocide denial.”
Colombi said SJP sued UMD for its right to demonstrate out of concern that a public university's creating a 24-hour free speech blackout could set “a very dangerous precedent.”
Last week, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore released a statement respecting the rule of law regarding free speech but called Oct. 7 an “inappropriate date” for the pro-Palestinian student group’s event.
Yoni Asher’s wife and daughters were taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7 and returned home after almost a month and a half. Asher reflected on how the girls are healing and called them an “inspiration.”
Trump visits holy Jewish site in New York to mark Oct. 7 anniversary
Former President Donald Trump paid a visit to Ohel Chabad Lubavitch in New York to mark the anniversary.
An Ohel is a structure built around the grave of a prominent Jewish person. This site holds Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson and his father-in-law, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, who were rabbis of the Chabad-Lubavitch dynasty.
As is customary, Trump wrote a letter to the rabbis, read it quietly, then tore it up and placed in the enclosed area. He then placed a rock on top of one of the tombstones, which is a customary Jewish way to honor the deceased.
Harris marks anniversary, plants symbolic pomegranate tree
Vice President Kamala Harris said she was “devastated by the pain and loss” that occurred on Oct. 7 as she joined second gentleman Doug Emhoff in planting a pomegranate tree on the grounds of the vice president’s residence in Washington.
The pomegranate tree, among other things, represents hope and righteousness in Judaism.
Jewish students at Columbia say culture on campus 'hasn’t really changed'
Reporting from New York
Jewish students at Columbia University said not much has changed on campus since last spring’s widespread protests.
“The culture on campus really hasn’t changed, because the university is attempting to put Band-Aids on bullet holes,” Eden Yadegar, 21, said as students groups staged a pro-Palestinian walkout across campus.
Fellow student Elisha Baker, 21, said: “They’re not letting us grieve. They’re not letting Jews grieve. They’re not allowing us to honor the people that we’ve lost and to raise awareness about the hostages. Instead, they want to make it about them.”
Columbia’s iconic Morningside Heights campus remains closed to visitors, with the school announcing in a letter to students yesterday that even pre-registered visitors would be limited on the anniversary.
One of the last Gaza hospitals hit again in a strike, Doctors Without Borders says
The Al Aqsa hospital compound in Deir-Al-Balah was hit earlier today, shortly followed by another strike on a tent nearby, according to a statement from Médecins Sans Frontières, known in English as Doctors Without Borders.
Eight people were injured and treated at the hospital, one of the few medical facilities that remain in the Gaza Strip, the statement said.
"This comes one day after an Israeli airstrike hit a mosque right next to the hospital," the aid group said. "Over the past months, the Al Aqsa hospital compound and its surroundings have been repeatedly hit, while it is one of the only 17 hospitals still partially functional in the Strip."
The humanitarian aid group urged the protection of medical works and facilities, noting a World Health Organization report there have been 516 attacks on health care entities in Gaza.
Leaders must 'cut a deal with the devil,' parents of American-Israeli hostage urge
Ronen and Orna Neutra are praying their son Omer is still alive, hoping he will be brought home after a year of being held hostage in Gaza.
Omer's 23rd birthday is just days away, his second in captivity. His parents have spent the last year urging officials to agree to a cease-fire deal that would bring him home, his father said.
"Hamas is not a nice group. It's a terrorist group," Ronen Neutra told MSNBC's Chris Jansing. "But you have to cut a deal with the devil in order to bring those 101 hostages home — among them, seven Americans — and it's long overdue."
Israel ordered Beirut evacuations moments before strike on Hezbollah intelligence center
The Israeli military issued evacuation orders for the Burj al-Barajneh and Hadath neighborhoods in Beirut's suburbs moments before it said it had hit a Hezbollah intelligence center.
The IDF said fighter jets attacked the center. It added that it was one of 70 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon over the last day.
Explosions heard in Tel Aviv
Reporting from Tel Aviv, Israel
Sirens blared across northern Tel Aviv this evening to warn residents to seek shelter as at least two explosions were heard in the central area of the city.
The IDF said the sirens in central Israel followed the identification of five projectiles launched into the country from Lebanon. It added that some of them were intercepted by the air force and the rest fell in open areas.
At least 1 arrested at pro-Palestinian protest in New York
At least one person connected to a pro-Palestinian demonstration in New York has been arrested, the city's police department has confirmed.
No additional details were immediately available. The protest was organized by student activist group Within Our Lifetime.
Israel expected to comply with international law in Lebanon, State Department says
Reporting from Washington
The U.S. still expects Israel to comply with international law while fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon, which means minimizing civilian casualties, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters today.
Miller did not answer a follow-up question about whether Israel was, in fact, minimizing risk to civilians in its strikes on Lebanon.
“So far, there’s never the question I can answer with a sweeping conclusion here,” Miller said. “As you know, it takes an assessment of individual strikes before we can reach any of those kinds of conclusions.”
Israel's ground invasion of Lebanon is still considered to be "limited" from the U.S. perspective, Miller said, though officials are keeping an eye on the situation. He also noted that the U.S. does not want to see any harm inflicted on the U.N. Interim Forces in Lebanon, who are still in the south of the country.
UNIFIL said yesterday that it was deeply concerned about IDF operations near one of its posts and that it is "unacceptable" to put the safety of its peacekeepers at risk.
"We don’t want to see them attacked by Israel," Miller said. "We don’t want to see them respond, return fire by Israel."
IDF estimates 135 Hezbollah projectiles fired at Israel
Israel's military estimated that Hezbollah fired 135 projectiles across its border with Lebanon today as fighting continues to rage.
In several statements, Hezbollah said it had attacked several Israeli sites, including the regions of Haifa, Beit Hillel and Kfar Vradim.
Pro-Palestinian protesters march through New York City
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators are marching through lower Manhattan to protest the war in Gaza.
Helicopter video captured by NBC New York showed part of the crowd holding up a large Palestinian flag and another group carrying a “Free Palestine” banner.
Horror still present in kibbutz Nir Oz, where almost a quarter of residents died
Reporting from Kibbutz Nir Oz
The horror is still very much present for Rita Lifshitz, who was in Tel Aviv on the day of last year’s terrorist attack, when Hamas fighters ran rampant in her home in kibbutz Niz Or.
About a quarter of the 400 residents who lived here were killed or kidnapped, including her mother, Yocheved, 86, and father-in-law, Oded Lifshitz, 84. While Yocheved was freed in November, Oded, a peace activist, remains in captivity.
“Before talking about peace, we need our 101 hostages back home now,” Lifshitz told NBC News today on a tour of the community, much of it a ghostly monument to that fateful day, Oded’s burned-out piano unmoved in the year since.
“It’s very difficult to start a life without them,” she added.
Nearby was the spot where Carmela Dan, 80, and her 12-year-old granddaughter, Noya Dan, were found.
“They were hugging each other. That’s how they found them,” Lifshitz said. “If the army had come in, she would still be alive. How come the army wasn’t here for eight hours?”