The world has forgotten. We remember
Three years after October 7, the world has forgotten. We must keep remembering.
On the afternoon of October 7, 2023, I was on the Gold Coast with my son, then six. We were on the light rail on our way back to our hotel in Surfers Paradise after spending the first part of the afternoon in Broadbeach.
My phone pinged – it was an internal AJN Whatsapp group.
AJN deputy editor Jessica Abelsohn shared a liveblog article from The Times of Israel: “Dozens of terrorists infiltrate southern Israel”.
“I think we need to break Yom Tov to post this,” she wrote. It was Simchat Torah, and we have a policy not to post on social media on yom tov unless absolutely necessary.
It would be the first of many messages that day as the full malevolent picture of Hamas’s onslaught – 1200 murdered including children, countless women raped, 251 hostages abducted – became clear.
The next week was a blur. Returning to Sydney on the Sunday evening, I got straight to work, interviewing an Australian olah who almost went to the Nova festival. Monday came and we scrambled to set aside most of what had already been written for that week’s edition and produce a paper befitting of the moment.
It is the only time during my long tenure at The AJN that we missed our print deadline. Thankfully, both the Sydney and Melbourne printers were accommodating, and we got the paper out.
We could not have known then what the horrific events in Israel would unleash worldwide, and particularly in our cocooned Australia.
The tone was set on October 9, 2023 – just two days after the worst loss of Jewish life in a single day since the Holocaust – when hate-filled thugs chanted “F**k the Jews”, “Where’s the Jews” and possibly “Gas the Jews” on the Sydney Opera House steps.
Israel had not yet begun its response to the heinous events of two days prior. This ostensible protest against the Jewish state’s actions was actually a celebration of Hamas’s gory rampage. It was openly antisemitic. And it came and went with no consequences for those involved.
We would become used to not seeing consequences for vile hate against the Jews for the next two years. Anti-Israel protesters were allowed to march on our streets and fill our university quadrangles chanting “Globalise the intifada”. Anti-Jewish hate exploded online. Vulgar graffiti was daubed on synagogues, schools, and houses. Synagogues were firebombed. We were doxxed, othered and cancelled.
And then on December 14, 2025, Islamist terrorists gunned down 15 people celebrating the first night of Chanukah at Bondi Beach.
Preoccupied by the aftermath of that attack, it is easy to forget that Israel still bears the scars of October 7. The hostages are finally home but many did not return alive. Three years of war have taken their toll. More than 950 soldiers have been killed, each leaving behind a grieving family. Reserve personnel have spent months away from their loved ones. Displaced families are still living out of suitcases.
But Israel, that remarkable nation, refuses to be held down for long. Communities are starting to rebuild. The memories of those lost are inspiring new humanitarian initiatives. And Israel continues to innovate scientifically and medically.
Sadly and unbelievably, it does all this while having its reputation smeared globally. Accusations of supposed war crimes and genocide have moved from the fringes almost to the mainstream. Governments, including our own have cynically taken positions hostile to the Jewish state to suit ideological rank-and-file constituents and to pander to antizionist voters.
The world has forgotten October 7.
Which is precisely why we must keep remembering it.
Gareth Narunsky is the Editor-in-chief of The AJN.