wow, you get to watch all your favorite stuff. it's to die for. now you won't miss a thing. this is the way. xfinity internet. made for streaming. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ announcer: funding for presentation of this program is provided by... woman: two retiring executives turn their focus to greyhounds, giving these former race dogs a real chance to win. a raymond james financial advisor gets to know you, your purpose, and the y you give back. life well planned. erika: i love seeing interns succeed,

i love seeing them come back and join the engagement teams and seeing where they go from there, i get to watch their personal growth, it makes my heart happy. (laughs) announcer: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. announcer: and now, "bbc news" christian: hello. i'm christian fraser. you're watching the context. tonight, israel remembers october 7. [screams] ♪

♪ christian: the continued rocket fire from the north and the south today, a reminder of the tight rope israel still walks. we will hear tonight from those who survived october 7, we will reflect on the year that has passed, and the losses on all sides. and we will discuss where the conflicts goes next as israel plans its response to last week's ballistic missile attacks from iran. welcome to the program. a year ago today at 6:29 in the morning the hamas rockets began to rain down on southern israel. 20 minutes later the hamas fighters had broken the border fence, thousands of them rampaging through israeli

communities. nearly 1200 people were killed. hundreds more were taken hostage . israel had been shaken to its roots, disoriented by the catastrophe, shamed by its failure to foresee it, but unanimous in their conviction that hamas would pay the price. at exactly 6:29 this morning, the flags were lowered to half mast to mark the moment the first hamas rockets were fired. at the site of the nova music festival where more than 350 people were murdered, president isaac herzog joined the families to mourn. all around them, the sound of the war, the drones hovering over gaza, the crack of gunfire over the border. the firing has raged almost unabated for over a year. there were rockets fired at israel today from dobb -- from gaza and lebanon. but benjamin netanyahu said the israeli forces are changing the

security reality in the region. in response, they have again have launched fresh strikes on targets in northern gaza. we start with this report from my colleague on the day's events. reporter: their tears are shared. there's a solidarity in this nation's soul. uniting strangers and friends, rich and poor, young and old. ♪ as a still-traumatized people mourn, thousands gathered today in southern israel remembering the 383 people killed at the nova music festival. what's also being mourned is the death of promise.

because so many young lives yet to be lived were snatched away. ask danielle, a survivor of the horror of october 7, in her early 20's. our conversation about how she ran for cover, broken by the sound of artillery fire, as war rages not far away in gaza. just running, not knowing where to go. it continues. a year later it continues and it is sad to say, but i'm used to it by now. i'm only 23. it is messed up i am used to rockets and missiles and terror attacks. reporter: that is such a tragedy. >> i don't know how, how is it possible that one year later and we still have 101 hostages? a few miles away from here. reporter: beneath the collective trauma, therare divisions.

here in tel aviv, it's the bereaved families of the hostages still being held in gaza were holding this commemoration. while tonight, there will be a different ceremony on behalf of the government, pre-recorded, without an audience, to be broadcast on television. how best to get the hostages home, how best to turn military ctories into longer-lasting political solutions? those are the big questions and fault lines. but for now, there is collective silence. to remember. do you think you will ever get over your experience, what happened? >> i he so. i don't know but i hope so. i am wishing i will. i am surrounded by amazing people. i know i am going to be ok, but i have to believe in that.

reporter: but will israel be ok? christian: clive myrie reporting for us. let's speak to our chief international correspondent lyse doucet. you have been at a memorial concert in tel aviv, another minute of silence to remember. maybe you can gives your brief reflections on what you have witnessed today. lyse: as you can see behind me, the screen is now gone. the memorial here was called the aggrieved families memorial. it was profoundly moving, very sad, very serene. the organizers said it was a moment for families to come together, to mourn together, and to try to find hope together. it really was a reaction to the government's own event that also happened today.

it was a prerecorded event that went out, no audience, and the organizers said it had no soul. the government was not invited here, because anger still burns among any of the families who lost loved ones during the horrific attacks of october 7. so many believe, as we often report, that prime minister benjamin netanyahu is not doing enough to bring the hostages home the last 101 still there, although many are feared dead. he says he is, but there is a profound feeling of anger and sadness that their loved ones are being forsaken. just traveling across southern israel yesterday and today is really chilling to try and imagine what people went through during the dawn rampage by hamas in t early hours of october 7 last year. you go to what were bustling, beautiful kibbutzs with the

trees. these were communities of many peace activists who had relations with gazans across the border. in those early hours their lives were completely shattered. so many say it is like an open wound. you can feel how wrong it still is. until every single hostage is accounted for, they feel they cannot rest. they continue to live through the horrors of october 7. of course throughout the time we were traveling throughout the south we kept hearing the loud booms of israeli artillery. there were occasional air raid sirens. because the war goes on, these horrific events triggered a devastating war in gaza which also has to be described as unprecedented. 42,000 dead so far says the u.n., most of them women and children, they say. today, again we are reminded by prime minister netanyahu, there

is no cease-fire in sight and this war will go on. christian: because there is no relenting from the groups israel is fighting, despite the pressure they may be under. hezbollah said today it was confident in its ability to repel the mounting israeli offensive. hamas said they will continue a war of attrition against israel. it is a reminder that we are a long way from a solution to all this. lyse: it's absolutely undeniable that israel has scored spectacular tactical successes over the past year. first of all, it has killed many of the senior commanders of hamas, although it is still searching for its most wanted man, yahya sinwar, who they believe is the master man of the october 7 attacks, believed to be hiding in a bunker under gaza. but the military capabilities of hamas have been smashed.

although as we saw today, they still have the capability to launch rockets. they are not the military force they are a year ago. catching israeli security forces off guard. october 7 was not just a deeply painful event, it was also a massive intelligence failure, security failure for israelis. when it comes to lebanon, hezbollah, extraordinary that israel has basically wiped out the well all of the command structures of hezbollah. it has attacked many of their operational headquarters, it has degraded many of their military capabilities. but hezbollah too has been firing rockets into israel. today they landed in a port. they were able to bypass israel's much vaunted air defenses. here, even in this biggest park in central tel aviv, as we were waiting for the ceremony to start, the air raid sirens went

off, there were loud shouts on the megaphones, get down. and a missile fired all the way from yemen by the houthis. all of these actors are what iran calls its ring of fire, its axis of resistance. prime minister netanyahu said he is determined to crush this network. but so many are saying that for all of these tactical successes the strategic success he wants, for israelis to be able to go home, 140,000 either in the north or theouth, or to ensure this kind of event doesn't happen again, that takes a political solution. the kind of solution that has been put forward by leaders in the west, we spoke to the finish -- the spanish foreign minister today. the only way forward that is going to work in terms of getting israel the security and wants is to move away from an occupation and to move towards a palestinian state. but for many here who are still

grieving, the views have hardened, and right now it is a mood of revenge. let's go and get them and destroy them. christian: yeah, we will maybe take a closer look at what that political solution might look like after the break. lyse doucet in tel aviv, thank you for that. around the world and across the u.k., you are watching bbc news. ♪

christian: welcome back. politicians in israel have frequently compared the massacre on october 7 to the holocaust. what you hear often from israelis is that no other country could tolerate this being done to them and not answer back. western countries have stood behind israel's response. yet in despite of that support for the response that there has been, some would say it has been squandered by the way the war has been conducted. at least 41,000 palestinians have been killed, twice as many

wounded, 6% of the buildings in ruin. we will hear shortly from the palestinian side of the debate on the destruction hamas brought upon them, but first we will focus on the october 7 commemorations on what has been an extremely somber day for everyone in israel. prime minister benjamin netanyahu has just been speaking in the last hour. take a listen. >> we are not deterred. we have stood strongly together to defend and protect our homeland. whatever strength was needed, we defined what the objectives of this war was. we want to eradicate the ham and bring our hostages home, whether they are alive or not. we must thwart any future threat on the state of israel and bring the residents of the north and south in safety to their homes. christian: let's pick up some of

that with a retired colonel from the israeli defense forces, now managing director of the international institute for counterterrorism. welcome to the program. in your opinion, has israel restored the deterrence was lost on october 7? certainly the response has been overwhelming, but does it change fundamentally the thrt and the danger israel was facing before october 7? >> before october 7 we didn't have deterrence because if we did hamas would not have been able to do and would not have chosen to do what they did. hamas planned it for years. one of the things we need to face in our own failure is that for hamas to plan such an attack and then enact it, we did not have deterrence against them. remind us all so that hezbollah was planning the same kind of attack, only hezbollah is 10 times stronger, has 10 times more capabilities. i would say in the last year we have been rebuilding deterrence.

are we there yet? sadly when you are talking the language of the middle eastern, i will only talk about the terror armies, the deterrence i think they only understand is the harsh one. i don't think we are there yet, and i say that very sadly. christian: mr. netanyahu still speaks vaguely of a demilitarized, de-radicalized gaza. what does that mean? he has never really spelled out how that will be achieved. what does that look like for you? miri: it is totally different. from a military point of view, demilitarized is when there are no carrying of weapons. israel has said consistently under netanyahu, and also most of the opposition leaders, that israel does not want to be the one to run the gaza strip, they would like it to be somebody else. here you get into the challenging politics that this

government has said no to the palestinian authority. i do support the palestinian authority going there, not that anybody is asking me. the demilitarized is that the ones who are there are the ones who hold the weapons. you want to get the weapons that hamas have amassed, they have a lot of installations, they made the weapons there, it is not just smuggling them in. when you talk about deradicalized, can i for a moment talk to the world? deradicalized is to make sure that when you teach people, young people to hate, when you dehumanize the other side, then they don't see them as human. and that attack on october 7 -- and today is a very difficult day, i am usually very easy and talking but today i find it hard, because it was the dehumanizing aspect of what happened october 7 which we still don't know how to face. because that is part of the de-radicalization. that, sadly, has been spread all

over the world in the last year anyway i in my lifetime never thought i would see. the dehumanizing, delegitimizing aspect against israelis, jews, everywhere worldwide. christian: but you will understand your critics will say in the numbers that have been killed and the destruction wreaked on gaza, that the israeli forces have, to an extent, dehumanized and delegitimized the palestinian civilians living in gaza. what the europeans are saying and what the biden administration perhaps privately is saying, is that it's not the way to do it. you have the united nations refugee chief saying on sunday international law has been violated in lebanon. you are killing innocent civilians. that, in the end, becomes counterproductive. miri: my heart goes out to every uninvolved civilian in the gaza strip and in israel and the west bank, and in lebanon.

and i don't think he would allowed to have inside your house weapons underneath the i don't think that you would think it is ok to build underneath a school, underneath the u.n. headquarters, underneath a hospital, underneath a mosque, the cachet of weapons that hamas and hezbollah and palestinian islamic jihad have built. i don't know how we can contend otherwise. because when we go to war, we never target civilians. and i say that with not just my heart and the way that goes in there, and i feel that that distance between the way hamas, hezbollah, and the other terror organizations, that they build themselves not just by living in the civilians, but by wearing civilian clothes. by keeping all these horrific arsenals. it is horrific what is happening in beirut, i agree with you. as a military person i will say every time we attack, i watch and see what we call the secondary explosions, which are

these enormous arsenals of weapons held under the apartment buildings. that is what hezbollah put ther e. i say it very harshly. my part can go out to every uninvolved civilian. we never target them, and i will not be put on that same moral ground because we do not do so, and it is as if it is equal. it is horrible when -- but that is not what this war is about. look at these terror organizations and tell me what you would do. as i said before, would you have this in your living room, children's room, underneath your mosque christian: just finally, i guess the extension of what you are saying and how you refer to the proxies, the logic of that is taking on iran. benny gantz, the former israeli ministry of defense, says now is the time to confront them. would you support an attack on the nuclear facilities in iran? miri: you are giving me a

platform on the bbc. why is this about israel? why is the islamic regime of iran that is to state -- that is destabilizing all of the middle east, the rockets fired from yemen, the houthis against israel? to me, the islamic regime of iran is something the world can face. can you imagine where we would be right now if this islamic regime is nuclear? this is not about me wanti more. i don't want war, ever. i did not ask for october 7. i think israel for a large degree, we thought we were deterring. it is also because we don't want war. and here we are in a war and what we are being told is hold back, they are behind civilians, hold back. iran is behind it all, but hold back. where is the rest of the world? the islamic regime destabilizes everybody. how about the world getting on board against this destabilizing meaning -- he calls us the cancer of the world. i am going to call against that

and say how about the world say the islamic regime, you are the de-stabilizer of the world. christian: we will get some reaction to that later in the program. miri eisin, thank you for coming on. as i said, we wanted to get some reaction to that, that is the israeli take. what happened on october 7 has had huge ramifications for the palestinian peoples well. the head of the palestinian mission to denmark, you are very welcome to the program, thank you for coming on. what does october 7 mean to you? >> october 7 means to me the perpetuation of israeli onslaught and the israeli occupation, the bolstering of e occupation and reoccupation of gaza, the west bank and east jerusalem. this is what reminds me. nobody talks about the essence of this conflict which started almost 70 years ago. it was as if palestine started october 7 when this kind of act took place with the overreaction

of the israeliccupation by flattening gaza, by killing more than 41,000 people in gaza, by now trying to flatten southern lebanon and killing children and what have you. trying basically to create a hunger and starvion to the people in gaza. with 17,000 children who have been massacred by the israelis. nobody talks about this. everybody talks about october 7 as if the war started october 7. this conflict, the inception of which started almost 70 years ago with the occupation in 1967. nobody talks about the colonialist, occupational list policy of israel was triggered all kinds of acts of resistance against it. christian: i take your point that the roots of this go a long way back. but as benny gantz says, there

are a number of proxies around israel and just today hezbollah issued a statement tha said israel is cancerous and must be limited. why would israel stop when that is the motivation of its near neighbor? manuel: the reaction is very simple. israelis have en killing hezbollah's leaders, and they have been trying to keep on bombarding southern lebanon and killing people indiscriminately. what do you expect from a resistance movement to say what they have said? christian: but do you have any criticism for the likes of yahya sinwar, the leader of the military wing of hamas? nearly 42,000 palestinians killed, many of them civilians. almost 60% of the buildings destroyed. is that the vision that yahya

sinwar has in mind for his people? manuel: 17 years of total boycott. 17 years of people living, 2.2 million under israeli open air prison camps. what do you expect the reaction of the people will be? you think they will sit idle and expect to be dead through starvation and bombing and not have a resistance? why don't we go back to the root cause of the problem which is ending the occupation, and everything will be ok. but by creating -- in order to continue controlling 5.6 million people living under occupation. and to justify that as israel

defending itself. this is not acceptable. when it comes to international laws, where is israel? everyone has been condemning israel as an occupying power. where is israel when it tries with impunity -- where is the intnational community in fulfilling all these obligations? christian: ok. manuel, we're right up announcer: funding for presentation of this program is provided by... financial services firm, raymond james. announcer: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

announcer: get the free pbs app now and stream the best of pbs.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ announcer: funding for presentation of this program is provided by.. woman: two retiring executives turn their focus to greyhounds, giving these former race dogs a real chance to win. a raymond james financial advisor gets to know you, your purpose, and the way you give back. life well planned. erika: i love seeing interns succeed,