Vigils, protests around the world commemorate the anniversary of Hamas attack on Israel

[October 08, 2024]  By DAVID R. MARTIN, TASSANEE VEJPONGSA and JUSTIN SPIKE

NEW YORK (AP) — Commemorations and protests unfolded across the world on Monday to mark the anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, an assault that sparked a war that has devastated the Hamas-ruled Gaza strip, fueled bloodshed in other Mideast lands and stirred protests and divisions far away.

Those divisions were visible in New York, where a crowd gathered for an evening remembrance ceremony in Central Park even as pro-Palestinian protesters converged on a corner of the park less than a mile away.

Hamas militants' surprise cross-border attack last year killed about 1,200 people. Another 250 were taken hostage; around 100 remain in captivity, with many of them feared dead. The attack, on a major Jewish holiday, shattered Israelis’ sense of security and left the world facing the prospect of a major conflict in the Middle East.

“The unfathomable horrors I experienced that morning have transformed me, along with every single Israeli and every single Jew,” Natalie Sanandaji, a survivor from a music festival where the attackers killed hundreds, told the audience in Central Park.

Israel responded to the Oct. 7 attack by waging a war against Hamas in Gaza, where the fighting has killed over 41,000 people and displaced around 1.9 million. The conflict has spread in the region, where Israel also is fighting Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, facing escalating threats from Yemen's Houthi rebels and contending with a mounting conflict with Iran, which backs Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.

In New York, protesters spread a large Palestinian flag on a street near the New York Stock Exchange early Monday afternoon, while a smaller group of counterprotesters held an Israeli flag. The pro-Palestinian group grew to a blocks-long column as it marched through Manhattan streets, at one point holding a banner that read “war begets war” on the steps of the New York Public Library.

Associated Press journalists saw several people being taken into police custody at various points in the march. Police said multiple arrests were made; no further information was immediately available.

While the protesters paused to conduct a Muslim evening prayer at the southwestern corner of Central Park, the parents of American-Israeli hostage Omer Neutra shared their anguish from the park's SummerStage venue.

“We would never have imagined we would still be standing here a whole year later, with no news of him," his mother, Orna Neutra, told hundreds of people at an event that drew New York’s governor, mayor, U.S. senators and other elected officials. Her son, a New York-born Israeli soldier, turns 23 next week.

At Philadelphia's Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, a New Jersey high school group viewed an exhibition about the Tribe of Nova music festival in Re’im, Israel, where over 360 people were killed.

“I feel like that really could have been me there,” said student Ellie Solomon. Many festivalgoers were close to her age, she noted.

“It’s important for us to remember them and honor them because they didn’t deserve anything that happened to them," she added.

A woman shouts slogans with a painting of late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in front of the Lebanese Embassy during a pro-Palestinian rally in Bogota, Colombia, Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, also toured the exhibition and emerged hoping that it gave people “an understanding of what really happened" and made them more tolerant “and more committed to finding peace in our society and peace across the globe.”

In an echo of campus protests across the U.S. last spring, activists gathered again at colleges Monday. About 200 pro-Palestinian protesters chanted and held banners and flags at the University of California, Los Angeles, while a few other demonstrators held Israeli flags.

Six months after counterprotesters attacked a pro-Palestinian encampment at UCLA, some people wore helmets to Monday's demonstration in case of violence. The protest was peaceful.

Hundreds of members of the Argentine Jewish community, the largest in Latin America, held a ceremony in Buenos Aires in memory of the victims of the Oct. 7 attack. A similar ceremony took place in Santiago, Chile.

Others took part in protests in support of the Palestinians in Lima, Peru; Bogota, Colombia and Mexico City, demanding an end to the conflict.

In Europe, where countries have sought to tamp down antisemitic and anti-Muslim sentiment, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in Hamburg that “we stand beside” Israelis, and he also pointed to the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.

The chancellery in Berlin was adorned with a yellow ribbon commemorating Israeli hostages, and the names of people killed and kidnapped were read out at the Brandenburg Gate.

French President Emmanuel Macron met in Paris with relatives of hostages and of the dead. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot attended a memorial service at the Nova festival site.

The Vatican took up a collection for the people of Gaza and published a letter expressing Pope Francis' solidarity.

In the Polish capital of Warsaw, the Jewish community paid tribute to Alex Dancyg, a Polish-born Holocaust educator who was abducted from the Nir Oz kibbutz on Oct. 7. Israel believes he died in captivity.

In Australia, thousands of people attended vigils in Sydney and Melbourne, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese joining the latter event. A day after thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators rallied across Australia's cities, hundreds gathered amid a heavy police presence at Sydney town hall to remember Palestinians killed in the conflict.

In Pakistan's largest city, Karachi, schoolchildren took part in a pro-Palestinian rally organized by the Pakistan Markazi Muslim League party.

___

Vejpongsa reported from Philadelphia and Spike from Budapest, Hungary. Contributing were Associated Press journalists Jennifer Peltz, John Minchillo and Ted Shaffrey in New York, Jaimie Ding in Los Angeles, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Diane Jeantet in Paris, Nicole Winfield in Rome, Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo, Vanessa Gera in Warsaw and Charlotte Graham-McLay in Wellington, New Zealand.

All contents © copyright 2024 Associated Press. All rights reserved