On the third anniversary of the October 7, 2023 attack, the San Marino-Israel Association remembers the victims and expresses solidarity with survivors and the families of hostages. In its statement, the association recalls the toll of roughly 1,200 dead and 251 people abducted in the attack led by Hamas.
“On the third anniversary of the October 7, 2023 massacre, the San Marino-Israel Association pays tribute to the victims of the largest anti-Jewish pogrom since the end of the Second World War: the bloodiest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust,” the statement reads.
The statement recalls the violence inflicted in homes and at the Nova festival: “Families were attacked in their own homes, young people were raped and slaughtered at the Nova festival, children and the elderly were dragged off as hostages to Gaza.”
One passage addresses the involvement in the attack of people the association identifies as civilians from Gaza. “With great sorrow, the Association recalls that the atrocities were not carried out by Hamas terrorists and other terrorist organizations alone. Accounts, documented even by the perpetrators themselves, show that civilians from Gaza took part in killings, rapes, kidnappings and looting.”
The same statement clarifies that the responsibility of those who took part must not be extended to the entire population: “This is a painful fact that, without extending the responsibility of those involved to the entire population, must be remembered with precision.”
The association concludes with a call to remembrance and the condemnation of violence: “To remember October 7 means preserving the memory of the victims, expressing solidarity with survivors and the families of hostages, and condemning terrorism and antisemitism without ambiguity. No justification can be accepted for that massacre. No prospect of peace can be built on the denial of what happened.”
