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Was Hamas’ attack the bloodiest day for Jews since the Holocaust?
(JTA) — As the death toll from Saturday’s attack on Israel has mounted, Israelis and Jews around the world have reached for analogies to explain the magnitude of the tragedy, calling the invasion “Israel’s 9/11” or “Israel’s Pearl Harbor.”
Others have tried to put the death toll — now at 700 soldiers and civilians — in perspective by setting it against a far bloodier tragedy: the Holocaust.
“Not since the Holocaust has this large a number of Jews been killed in a single day. Let that sink in,” read an Instagram post from Daniella Greenbaum, a former producer for “The View.” Greenbaum added, “I have no words. My heart is broken. My soul is aflame.”
Eylon Levy, a former spokesperson for Israeli President Isaac Herzog, posted online: “It’s no exaggeration to say yesterday was the darkest day in Jewish history since the end of the Holocaust.” Lazar Berman, a reporter for the Times of Israel, made the same reference: “October 7, 2023 saw the most Jews slaughtered in a single day since the Holocaust.”
The claim appears to be accurate. There have been bloody days in Israel’s history and for Jews around the world since 1945, but none has had a civilian death toll this high. Israeli wars have had higher casualty totals overall, but none has seen this many civilians murdered in a single day.
Israel’s bloodiest war was its War of Independence, which saw 6,000 citizens of the nascent state die in the fighting. But that number is generally counted from No. 29, 1947 into 1949, when the fighting stopped — a period of close to two years. The majority of casualties were soldiers, not civilians.
Saturday’s attack is also being compared to the Yom Kippur War, a conflict in which the Israeli military was taken by surprise on a holy day. Hamas’ attack came one day after that war’s 50th anniversary.
Two of the country’s rival newspapers ran near-identical headlines on Sunday, both declaring that a war had broken out and comparing the Hamas attack to the 1973 war. One read, “The negligence of ’73, the negligence of ’23.”
But while more than 2,000 soldiers died over the course of more than two weeks, the war had a very low Israeli civilian death toll.
שערי העיתונים להיום, 8.10.2023. גלריית השערים המלאה עכשיו באתר. בוקר טוב https://t.co/1ByJZtZrvl pic.twitter.com/LSSaYT2bCI
— העין השביעית (@the7i) October 8, 2023
In more recent memory, Israelis approximate that 1,000 people died in the terror attacks of the second intifada, a period that is traditionally counted from late 2000 to mid-2005. The deadliest single bombing of that intifada was an attack on the Park Hotel in Netanya — which, like Saturday’s attack, came on another Jewish holiday (in that case, Passover). Thirty people were killed in that attack.
Large-scale murders of Jews have also happened outside of Israel since 1945, though with smaller death tolls than Saturday’s attack. In 1946, a pogrom in Kielce, Poland, killed at least 42 Jews. The bombing of the AMIA Jewish Center in Buenos Aires in 1994, which the American Jewish Committee called “the deadliest antisemitic attack outside Israel since the Holocaust,” killed 85 people.
By contrast, while the figures are still being tallied, it’s clear that at least several hundred Israeli civilians were killed on Saturday in addition to soldiers.
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The post Was Hamas’ attack the bloodiest day for Jews since the Holocaust? appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Report: IDF Probes Whether Houthis Used Iranian Cluster Bomb-Bearing Missile
Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi addresses followers via a video link at the al-Shaab Mosque, formerly al-Saleh Mosque, in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
i24 News – The Israeli military said Saturday it launched a probe into the failure of its defenses to fully intercept a missile launched by Yemen’s Houthi jihadists, parts of which struck not far from the Ben Gurion airport on Friday night.
According to the Ynet website, one of the hypotheses being examined is that the projectile contained cluster munitions, similar to those used by Iran to fire at Israeli cities during the 12-day war in June. Cluster munitions pose a challenge to interceptors as they disperse smaller explosives over a wide area.
In June, Iran fired several missiles carrying scattered small bombs with the aim of increasing civilian casualties.
The IDF said on Saturday that its initial review suggests the ballistic missile from Yemen likely fragmented in mid-air. Five interceptors from various systems engaged with the missile, including THAAD, Arrow, David Sling & Iron Dome.
Authorities said that shrapnel impacted a house in the central Israeli moshav of Ginaton, yet no one was hurt, with the fragment landing in the house’s backyard.
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Iran Forces Kill Six Militants, IRNA Reports, Israel Link Seen
The Iranian flag is seen flying over a street in Tehran, Iran, Feb. 3, 2023. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iranian security forces shot dead six militants in a clash in southeastern Iran on Saturday, a day after armed rebels killed five police officers in the restive region, the official news agency IRNA reported.
IRNA said evidence showed the group was linked to Israel and may have been trained by Israel‘s Mossad spy agency. There was no immediate Israeli reaction to the allegation.
Another two members of the militant group were arrested, the report said. All but one of the militants were foreign, it added, without giving their nationality.
Iranian police said this month they had arrested as many as 21,000 suspects during the 12-day war with Israel in June.
Iran’s southeast has been the scene of sporadic clashes between security forces and armed groups, including Sunni militants and separatists who say they are fighting for greater rights and autonomy.
Tehran says some of them have ties to foreign powers and are involved in cross-border smuggling and insurgency.
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Benny Gantz Urges Time-Limited National Unity Government to Further Chances of Hostage Deal
Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz attends his party’s meeting at the Knesset, Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, June 27, 2022. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz on Saturday called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition politicians to form a temporary national unity government to further the chances of bringing home the hostages held in Gaza.
Addressing Netanyahu, Yair Lapid and Avigdor Liberman, Gantz said that the proposed government’s two supreme priorities would be the release of Israeli hostages held by the jihadists of Hamas and instituting universal conscription in Israel by ending the exemption from military service enjoyed by the ultra-Orthodox.
Upon attainment of the goals, the government would dissolve and call an election.
“The government’s term will begin with a hostage deal that brings everyone home,” Gantz said in a video address. “Within weeks, we will formulate an enlistment outline that would see our ultra-Orthodox brethren drafted to the military and ease the burden on those already serving. Finally, we will announce an agreed-upon election date in the spring of 2026 and pass a law to dissolve the Knesset [Israeli parliament] accordingly. This is what’s right for Israel.”