Israelis mark a year since Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attack with hostages still in Gaza and war growing around them
CBSN
Tel Aviv — Israelis were marking a full year Monday since Hamas' brutal Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, gathering at the sites of some of the atrocities to honor those killed and demand the release of those still held captive in Gaza. For many, it's hard to believe that 365 days have passed.
"We didn't close the story. We are still there in that Shabat — in that Saturday," Batsheva Yahalomi told CBS News just days ago, as she revisited her former home in Kibbutz Nir Oz.
Her husband is thought to be among the 101 hostages still held in Gaza. Her son was held hostage for 52 days before being released in a prisoner swap with Hamas in November 2023 — one of 105 Israelis freed in exchange for about 180 Palestinians in the only such exchange negotiated during the year of war.
Damascus — A CBS News team drove through a Syrian military airbase on the outskirts of capital city Damascus Monday, and the devastation caused by Israeli air strikes was abundantly clear. Israel has said it's determined to destroy weapons and other military hardware that ousted dictator Bashar al-Assad and his father spent half of a century accumulating, before it can fall into the hands of extremists.
Johannesburg — Sudan's Rapid Support Forces, one side in a civil war that's torn the African nation apart for more than a year and created one of the worst humanitarian crises on the planet, are accused of raping scores of women and girls and using some as sex slaves in a new report by Human Rights Watch. The New York-based rights group says the paramilitary forces' use of sexual violence in the country's South Kordofan state since September 2023 constitutes war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.
South Korea's parliament on Saturday impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol over his stunning and short-lived martial law decree, a move that ended days of political paralysis but set up an intense debate over Yoon's fate, as jubilant crowds roared to celebrate another defiant moment in the country's resilient democracy.
Eastern Syria — CBS News was among the first news outlets to speak on Thursday with Travis Timmerman, an American who was feared dead by family and friends, days after he was freed from a notorious prison in Syria. He said he had spent seven months jailed by the regime of now-ousted dictator Bashar al-Assad before rebels broke down his cell door.