This story has been updated.
By Gary Gately
Catholic clergy, organizations and lay people — along with Jews and public officials throughout the world — marked the third anniversary of the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Wednesday, pairing remembrance of the dead with denunciations of antisemitism and renewed appeals for an end to the war in Gaza.
“An attack on Jewish people in Britain is an attack on all of us,” British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, a Catholic, said in a statement. Burnham pledged to provide funding to protect synagogues and Jewish schools, adding that “antisemitism has no place in this country” and vowing to “do everything we can to stamp it out.”
In a joint anniversary statement from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, Bishop Nicholas Hudson of Plymouth and Auxiliary Bishop James Curry of Westminster said: “We remember the Jewish people around the world who continue to carry deep wounds and trauma caused by the atrocities of that day.” The bishops condemned Hamas’ “brutal massacre” of Israeli civilians while urging “dialogue, forgiveness, justice and reconciliation” to bring lasting peace to the Holy Land, offering prayers for the victims of the terrorist attack and calling for “an end to antisemitism throughout the world.”
Britain’s Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, said he was “appalled” that the Green Party had passed a motion declaring Zionism racism, which Mirvis denounced as “poisonous antisemitism, a threat to British Jews and to Britain.”
New research from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, tracking 2,500 British Jews since 2020, found half now describe antisemitism in Britain as a “very big problem” — up from 17 per cent in May 2023.
Antisemitic incidents have surged around the world since October 7, 2023, rising far above pre-attack levels. The Anti-Defamation League’s annual audit counted 6,274 U.S. incidents last year, the third-highest since tracking began in 1979, with physical assaults at a record 203. In Britain, the Community Security Trust recorded 3,700 incidents in 2025, its monthly average exactly double the pre-October 7 level. The J7 Large Communities’ Task Force Against Antisemitism — the coalition of major Jewish community organizations in the seven countries with the largest Jewish populations outside Israel — reported more than 23,000 incidents in 2025. Twenty people were killed in antisemitic attacks last year — 15 at Sydney, Australia’s Bondi Beach, two in Manchester, England and three in the U.S. — the deadliest toll of violence targeting Jews in more than 30 years.
Neither the Vatican nor the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released statements Wednesday marking the third anniversary of the Hamas terrorist attack.
Pope Leo XIV has repeatedly called for a ceasefire in Gaza and dialogue as a pathway to peace. On Sunday, the leader of the 1.4 billion-member Catholic Church urged the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the Angelus to pray for peace in the Holy Land and for civilian victims of war. Addressing Jewish philanthropists in June, Leo recalled that Nostra Aetate “affirmed, among other things, the truth that we belong to one human family.”
Across the U.S., Jewish leaders mark the anniversary
Jewish leaders throughout the U.S. marked the anniversary at events throughout the day and into Wednesday night. Jewish activists and philanthropists Negar and Steven Kamara joined other community members in Beverly Hills for a Wednesday “Moment of Remembrance” marking the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack. At a memorial in Oak Park, Michigan, where attendees received a card bearing the photo of each person killed, Rabbi Simcha Tolwin of Aish Detroit said: “You look at the faces of the people who were murdered, and it’s an important thing to remember the individuals.”
Meanwhile, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s statement — pairing acknowledgment of the “horrific war crimes of October 7” with accusations of Israeli “genocide” — drew condemnation from Jewish leaders across the globe, including Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, who posted on X:
[
Jonathan Greenblatt@JGreenblattADL
.@NYCMayor, not once do you say “Jews.” On Oct. 7, Hamas-led attackers murdered civilians, committed sexual violence, mutilated bodies and took hostages. You are weaponizing a day meant for mourning the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust to recycle your usual antizionist…
Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @NYCMayor
This day is profoundly painful for so many New Yorkers. It marks three years since the horrific war crimes of October 7. On that day, Hamas killed more than 1,100 Israelis and abducted 251 others. We grieve alongside our many friends and neighbors who still carry that unthinkable
1:42 PM · Oct 7, 2026 · 162K Views
195 Reposts · 1.41K Likes
](https://x.com/JGreenblattADL/status/2107828938659508440)
On Wednesday evening, a pro-Palestinian protest in New York’s Union Square overshadowed a candlelight vigil organized by Israelis for Peace as Mamdani arrived. Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters — furious that he had acknowledged the “horrific war crimes of October 7” — accused Israel of genocide as they booed the mayor and waved Palestinian flags.
Earlier Wednesday, three Democratic Catholic governors — New York’s Kathy Hochul, a Catholic, California’s Gavin Newsom and New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill marked the anniversary in X posts:
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Kathy Hochul@KathyHochul
On the third anniversary of Hamas’ horrific attack against Israel, we continue to mourn the innocent lives that were lost. I will always stand with Jewish New Yorkers, condemn antisemitism in all of its forms, and pray for lasting peace.
6:26 PM · Oct 7, 2026 · 13K Views
306 Replies · 23 Reposts · 212 Likes
](https://x.com/KathyHochul/status/2107900273674907833)[
Governor Gavin Newsom@CAgovernor
California will forever mourn the lives stolen by terrorists on October 7, and the immense carnage that has followed in the years since. May all who call the region home know the peace, security, and healing every human being deserves.
8:21 PM · Oct 7, 2026 · 79.1K Views
264 Replies · 73 Reposts · 829 Likes
](https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/2107929344387805194)[
Governor Mikie Sherrill@GovSherrillNJ
My heart is with every New Jerseyan still grieving the horrific October 7th terrorist attacks. Three years ago, Hamas murdered 1,200 innocent people and took 251 hostages, including New Jersey’s Edan Alexander. Even as time passes, the pain endures. People across our state are…
2:24 PM · Oct 7, 2026 · 37K Views
169 Replies · 45 Reposts · 656 Likes
](https://x.com/GovSherrillNJ/status/2107839522960503088)
And Catholic Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat, posted:
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Senator Dick Durbin@SenatorDurbin
It has been three years since the horrific October 7 terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas. I pray that out of the pain and ashes of this atrocity comes a renewed focus on the future and a world that allows Israeli and Palestinian children to once and for all live together in peace…
2:35 PM · Oct 7, 2026 · 7.83K Views
34 Replies · 12 Reposts · 47 Likes
](https://x.com/SenatorDurbin/status/2107842274369413567)
One interfaith initiative keeps growing. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews’ annual “Flags of Fellowship” campaign — churches, universities and synagogues planting displays of 1,200 miniature Israeli flags, one for each life taken on October 7 — drew a few hundred congregations in 2024, more than 1,350 organizations last year, and counts 4,375 churches, synagogues and organizations planting 5.2 million flags this October. “The enemies of Israel burn the flags; we’re going to plant them,” said IFCJ president Yael Eckstein, who called the displays a message to the world that the Jewish people are here to stay.
Fervent pleas for elusive peace in war-ravaged Gaza
In Gaza, fresh grief preceded the anniversary of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.
Early Saturday, Israeli airstrike on a residential building in Gaza City’s Al-Rimal neighborhood killed five Palestinians. Among the dead: Maysa Khader Ibrahim Abu Daoud, 60, and her daughter Mary Hafez Michel Najjar, 35 — Greek Orthodox Christians who had spent much of the war sheltering at Gaza’s Holy Family Catholic parish, serving food and water to the displaced and tending the elderly, the sick and the disabled.
A few months ago, the mother and daughter had finally moved into a ground-floor apartment in western Gaza City, where the Israeli strike killed them, along with Dr. Yasmin al-Boubou, a university department head, her mother Halloum, and 21-year-old Bilal Ali Khalil Awda. The Israeli military said the strike targeted Ali Ahmed Al-Amoudi, a senior Hamas political figure described as Yahya Sinwar’s right-hand man.
On Monday, Pope Leo invoked the biblical lament “How long, O Lord?” in a forceful plea for peace in Gaza. In a message to Father Gabriel E. Romanelli of Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza City, Pope Leo prayed for the two women and thanked the priest for the parish’s ministry to hundreds of Palestinians it has sheltered throughout the war in Gaza.
The Holy Father’s message came just two days after Christians and Muslims packed St. Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza City to mourn the deaths of Daoud and Najjar, celebrate their lives, pray for them and all those they left behind and cry out to heaven with pleas for peace.
The Saturday service at St. Porphyrius took place less than 48 hours after a mass funeral in the city for 105 people whose remains had just been recovered from the ruins of a building leveled by an Israeli military strike weeks after the war began in October 2023.
“The killing of Maysa and her daughter Mary confirms the deepest fear we hold every single day — that there is not a single safe place left in Gaza,” Father Romanelli said in a video message Sunday.
In sharp contrast to deep religious divides and growing Islamophobia in the U.S. and well beyond, Saturday’s service at St. Porphyrius — built by Christian Crusaders in the 12th century in an era of relentless sectarian bloodletting — reflected unity, harmony and religious tolerance between Holy Land Christians and Muslims. Christian and Muslim clergy, community leaders and displaced Palestinians who have sheltered together at St. Porphyrius and Holy Family gathered beneath a fresco of the Crucifixion and alongside a gilded wall of icons of saints in the stunningly beautiful church.
“The [Israeli] occupation has never differentiated between Christian and Muslim, nor between church and mosque; it sheds Palestinian blood wherever it is found,” Ala al-Din al-Aklok, head of the independent National Gathering of Palestinian Tribes and Families, an independent alliance of traditional extended families and community elders, told the gathering.
Israel has struck Gaza’s churches before. On October 19, 2023, an Israeli airstrike destroyed a building in the St. Porphyrius compound where hundreds were sheltering, killing 18. Israel said its military had targeted a nearby Hamas command center. On July 17, 2025, an Israeli strike killed three at the Holy Family compound and wounded Fr. Romanelli. Israel called it unintended. Pope Francis had called Holy Family almost nightly from October 2023 until April 19, 2025 — two days before he died.
The toll of war: A 14-year-old boy, suddenly without a mother or grandmother
As mourners headed to the St. Porphyrius burial ground to lay to rest Daoud and her daughter, Mary, 14-year-old Fouad al-Najjar stood outside the sanctuary gates and tried to convey the depths of his grief over losing his mother and grandmother in the attack that destroyed their apartment.
“Today is essentially the worst day of my life,” said al-Najjar, who was at his father’s house when the strike occurred. “We are exhausted by this war and have endured so much. For almost three years, we have been living through the same destruction, the same grief and the same war.”
Let us pray for an end to religious division, hatred and bigotry, and for peace, for the sake of the children — all children, and all people, whatever their faiths — in Gaza, in Israel and throughout the world.
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