Israel was tragically caught off guard, as it faced a highly coordinated, wide-ranging and devastating attack by Hamas on Saturday. In a multi-pronged operation, terrorists infiltrated Israel from Gaza, resulting in unprecedented murder and destruction. This horrifying assault, which roughly coincided with the fiftieth anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, left the nation in shock and mourning. It was the worst terror attack in the history of modern Israel.
A Ramat Beit Shemesh-based journalist for an English-speaking publication, who wishes to remain anonymous, said that she fled to her nearby shelter six times that Saturday morning.
“Since it was Shabbat/Simchat Torah (Jewish holy day), we didn’t realize the gravity of the situation, as we’re used to hearing sirens every now and then and running to a shelter. In the afternoon, security personnel warned everyone not to hang around outside,” the Canadian expatriate said.
“Everyone is shocked that this could happen in the State of Israel and at how Hamas managed to do this. It was a pogrom. People are sad about the hundreds of deaths and worried about the hostages, grief-stricken, but we are also confident that we’ll win this war. Prepared, though, for a long haul. Hoping this time we’ll destroy them rather than a band-aid kind of win, where you know it will only happen again, especially with all the fatalities this time. Hoping the country will be more unified after almost a year of profound division.”
Hamas terrorists went home by home targeting civilians. They also surrounded an open-air NOVA music festival attended by young Israelis, resulting in the tragic loss of approximately three hundred lives.
Reports indicate that approximately five thousand Hamas missiles rained down on Israel throughout the day and throughout the country. The relentless barrage caused extensive damage to homes and infrastructure, and claimed hundreds of lives. As of this writing, about a hundred Israelis – men, women and children – were taken hostage by Hamas terrorists, who are threatening to execute them if Israel persists in its counteroffensive.
Hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens sought refuge in bomb shelters, living in constant fear for their safety. The attack shook the nation to its core, leading many to liken it to “Israel’s 9/11” due to the scale of the attacks and the unprecedented death toll.
As of this report, nine hundred Israelis were reported dead, and dozens of Israeli men and women in uniform lost their lives while fighting Hamas. The wounded numbered in the thousands. The death toll of Jews murdered in a single day, reached a level not seen since the Holocaust.
Those murdered include Alex Look, a Montrealer who was gunned down while saving the lives of others. Ben Mizrachi from Vancouver was also killed, according to Global Affairs Canada. Two Canadians were abducted, according to the Jewish Federation of Canada, including Vivian Silver, a Canadian-Israeli from Winnipeg, from her home on Kibbutz Be’eri. A hundred and eight bodies were discovered at Kibbutz Be’eri. In Kfar Aza, the bodies of forty babies were discovered Tuesday, brutalized, and some beheaded.
“Imagine if the tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid actually helped the people of Gaza. Imagine if the tens of billions spent on terror tunnels and weaponry, built hospitals and infrastructure,” said former Torontonian Randy Zelcer, of Ramat Beit Shemesh. “As Golda Meir once said, correctly: ‘We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.’”
Toronto-based lawyer Brad Neufeld has spent the past month in Tel Aviv. Two Hamas missiles hit on Saturday two blocks from where he’s staying. (Gaza is 80 km from Tel Aviv – roughly the distance between Toronto and Barrie).
A local landlord in the area of Ben Yehuda and Trumpeldor streets has offered twenty empty apartments to those who cannot return to their homes, he said, while a fundraising drive has collected furniture and toys to fill the apartments. Ten blood drives were set up simultaneously, he added, while residents filled supermarket carts to donate supplies to those in need.
“The dichotomy between the togetherness that I’m seeing today, and that animosity (of judicial reform protests) that was there a few weeks ago is astounding. It’s almost as if people are so focused on trying to help and do whatever they can,” he said.
“I think the other piece that is also out there is that everybody knows someone that is impacted – whether they knew someone who lives down there, that went to the music festival, called to the reserves and is fighting in the war, friends missing, there is a true sense that everyone is in this together. That part of it is also moving.”
Meanwhile, Hershel Recht, the central regional director of Canadian Magen David Adom for Israel, the local fundraising arm for the Israeli ambulatory service, said there are currently 2,576 ambulances in action across the country.
The charitable organization is compiling a list of Canadian doctors – Jews or non-Jews – willing to go to Israel in the event of an emergency call up. So far, nearly eighty Canadian doctors have stepped up, he said, including anesthesiologists, blood doctors, vascular surgeons, emergency, OB-GYNs, nephrologists, and pediatricians.
“I can tell you that Magen David Adom is in urgent need of as much medical supplies as possible. Because the situation is fluid and constantly changing on a minute to minute basis,” said Recht.
In the midst of rescue, Magen David Adom has had many of its vehicles damaged, he added, and they now need three hundred more. Twenty are already in transit via cargo aircraft to Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war on Hamas, with the Israeli Defence Forces calling up 300,000 active duty soldiers and reservists. Jason Swirsky, a Haifa-based SEO manager, said many members of his community have been called into service.
“We have connections to soldiers stationed all over the country including in the line of fire,” he said.
His 18-year old daughter has an administrative job at army headquarters in Tel Aviv. Her role has switched from a day job, to working 24-hour or so shifts. Swirsky said his children are “really struggling emotionally with the whole thing.”
Schools have been closed until further notice.
“My eight year old has been having a really hard time processing. Saturday night he was up almost the entire night. Since then we have put a limit of how much information we share around the younger kids,” Swirsky said.
“My impression of the general consensus is that Israel is going to rescue the hostages and make Hamas pay the price for their cruelty and pure evil. The days of letting them off the hook of the past are over. People are also wondering how in the world did Hamas get over the most sophisticated well defended border in the world? Someone had to of dropped the ball somewhere. At the same time, seems to be a consensus that this is not the time for finger pointing.”
Canadian political leaders responded with condemnation of the attacks.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau strongly condemned the attacks, emphasizing Canada’s unwavering support for Israel. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre denounced the “sadistic violence” and pledged solidarity with the victims. On Oct. 9 at an Ottawa rally he described Hamas as a “sadistic demonic genocidal death cult that must be defeated… this is evil in its purest form and that evil must be defeated.”
Former prime minister Stephen Harper and Ontario Premier Doug Ford also expressed staunch support for Israel.
Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow’s now-deleted comments on X, formerly Twitter, urging people to “not forget the Palestinian pain,” drew consternation as being insensitive to the Jewish community. Social media, moreover, witnessed a disturbing surge of antisemitism, with some individuals applauding the mass death.
Brandon Montour, who is listed as a senior legal affairs advisor to Liberal Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Gary Anandasangaree on the federal government’s employee directory, shared a post that supported “revolutionary violence.”
Pro-Hamas rallies took place in major cities, including Toronto, Calgary, Winnipeg and Montreal, raising concerns about the spread of radical ideologies, as well as potential local attacks against Jews.
“Tens of thousands of people in Canada are supporting savagery, barbarism? Any reasonable person knows Israel isn’t putting up walls just for kicks. It’s precisely because they know if they don’t, an attack like this would happen writ-large, every day,” said Yehudi Ben Simon, a Toronto-based engineer, originally from Tel Aviv.
“What you see isn’t ‘resistance.’ What this is, is genocide, motivated by Islamism – and that is why they yell ‘allahu akhbar!’ (Allah is great).”
