PLANTATION, FLA. (WSVN) - Jewish communities came together across South Florida to mark the one-year-anniversary of the deadly Oct. 7, 2023 attacks in Israel with song, prayer and flowers.

7News cameras on Sunday captured the congregation at Ramat Shalom Beth Israel Synagogue in Plantation as they marked one year since a terror attack In israel that claimed the lives of more than 1,200 civilians from Israel, the U.S. and other nations.

Hundreds of hostages were taken that day, leaving communities in pain.

“On October 7th, we had the worst attack on the Jewish community since the Holocaust,” said Rabbi Andrew Jacobs from Ramat Shalom Beth Israel. “So many people killed, raped, assaulted, villages in Israel burned to the ground, people kidnapped.”

Jacobs was seen blowing the shofar during Sunday’s multigenerational service. His synagogue is thousands of miles away from the escalating conflict, but a remembrance of the lives taken brought out people to pay tribute to the victims.

Ofek Simkin has experienced the year that followed from the inside as a paratrooper with the Israeli army. He said he was seriously wounded in Gaza.

“We went back to Gaza, we went all across to Gaza — in the middle, in the center, in the north and the south,” he said. “We were in Shuja’iyya, Nuseirat, Khan Yunis.”

One day before the actual anniversary of the attack, the Israeli military stepped up its attacks in northern Gaza after, they said. Hamas has started to regroup.

Airstrikes killed at least 25 people in Gaza, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been ordered to evacuate.

The death toll of Palestinians doesn’t make a distinction between innocent civilians and Hamas militants in Gaza, but officials with the Gaza Health Ministry, connected to Hamas, said more than 41 Palestinians have been killed.

The United Nations said more than 2 million Palestinians are without basic necessities like food, water, shelter and medicine.

There is more activity in Lebanon, where the leader of Hamas’ military wing was killed.

Back in South Florida, there were pops of beauty to remember the lives taken one year ago — one flower was planted for each life taken by Hamas terrorists.

Jacobs says the world has to know how October 7 has activated enemies to Israel’s south, and in recent days the north from Hezbollah and Iran

“It’s a way to never forget and to continue to remember them,” he said. “Many Israelis are still struggling, too many people are still held hostage, and Israel’s war continues to expand as its enemies continue to attack from every direction.”

The one-year anniversary of the October 7 attacks is being marked in Israel and beyond with remembrances and, in some places, protests.

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