Winner of the National Jewish Book Awards' 2024 Jewish Book of the Year and The Natan Fund's
Winter 2025 Notable Book Award! The definitive account of the 10 7 attacks through the stories
of its victims and the communities they called home. On October 7 2023-the Sabbath and the
final day of the holiday of Sukkot-the Gaza-based terror group Hamas launched an unprecedented
assault on the people of Israel. Crashing through the border attacking from the sea and air
militants indiscriminately massacred civilians in what became one of the worst terror attacks
in modern history and the most lethal day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. A
radically passionate work of investigative journalism and political critique by acclaimed
Haaretz reporter Lee Yaron 10 7 chronicles the massacre that ignited a war through the stories
of more than 100 civilians. These stories are the products of extensive interviews with
survivors the bereaved and first responders in Israel and beyond. The victims run the gamut
from left-wing kibbutzniks and Burning Man-esque partiers to radical right-wingers from
Bedouins and Israeli Arabs to Thai and Nepalese guest workers peace activists elderly
Holocaust survivors refugees from Ukraine and Russia pregnant women and babies. At a time
when people are seeking a deeper understanding of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict and how internal political turmoil in Israel has affected it they predominantly
encounter perspectives from the powerful-from politicians and military officers. 10 7 takes a
fresh approach offering answers through the stories of everyday people those who lived
tenuously on the border with Gaza. Yaron profiles victims from a wide range of
communities-depicting the fullness of their lives not just their final moments-to honor their
memories and reveal the way the attack ripped open Israeli society and put the entire Middle
East on the precipice of disaster. Each chapter begins with a portrait of a community
interweaving history with broader political analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to
provide context for the narratives that follow. Ultimately 10 7 shows that the tragedy is much
greater than the violence of the attacks and in fact extends back through the entire Netanyahu
era which propagated a false image of Israel as a technologically advanced militarily
formidable powerhouse so essential to the region that it could continue to ignore and undermine
Palestinian statehood indefinitely.
