section_path: War in Israel and Gaza/7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel
section_name: 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel
paragraph_text: 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel
  
  In the morning of 7 October 2023, during the Jewish holidays of Simchat Torah and Shemini Atzeret on Shabbat, Hamas announced the start of what it called " Operation Al-Aqsa Flood ", firing between 3,000 and 5,000 rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel within a span of 20 minutes, killing at least five people. In the evening, Hamas launched another barrage of 150 rockets towards Israel. Simultaneously, around 3,000 Hamas militants infiltrated Israel from Gaza using trucks, motorcycles, bulldozers, speedboats, and paragliders. They took over checkpoints at Kerem Shalom and Erez, and created openings in the border fence in five other places.
  
  Militants massacred civilians in several kibbutzim, where they took hostages and set fire to homes. In a massacre at an outdoor music festival near Re'im, at least 325 people were killed, with more injured or taken hostage. In total, 251 people, mostly civilians, were taken hostage, including children, elderly people, and soldiers. Hamas militants also reportedly engaged in mutilation, torture, and sexual and gender-based violence.
  
  The 7 October attacks were described as "an intelligence failure for the ages" and a " failure of imagination " on the part of the Israeli government. A BBC report commented on Hamas's "extraordinary levels of operational security". It later emerged that abnormal Hamas movements had been detected the previous day by Israeli intelligence, but the military's alert level was not raised and political leaders were not informed.
  
  A briefing in The Economist noted that "the assault dwarf all other mass murders of Israeli civilians", and that "the last time before October 7th that this many Jews were murdered on a single day was during the Holocaust." According to both Hamas officials and external observers, the attack was a calculated effort to create a "permanent" state of war and revive the Palestinian cause.