‘We will never be the same’: Montreal mother honours son killed in Oct.7 Hamas attack

Alexandre Look, a 33-year-old Montreal native, was among the concertgoers who were murdered a year ago Monday at the Supernova music festival.

Raquel Ohnona Look wipes back tears when her eyes fall on the plaque in honour of her son Alexandre, affixed to a bench in a suburban Montreal green space that was recently renamed for him.

“Forever in our hearts. Our hero,” it reads above his name and the dates of his birth and death — Sept. 10, 1990, to Oct. 7, 2023.

Alexandre Look, a 33-year-old Montreal native, was among the concertgoers who were murdered a year ago Monday at the Supernova music festival during a brutal assault on Israel carried out by Hamas militants. He is among at least eight people, either Canadian citizens or with ties to Canada, who died during the Oct. 7 attacks.

“It’s been a tough year. It’s a new reality. Our family dynamic changed,” Ohnona Look said in an interview last week, just before Rosh Hashanah. “Obviously he was such a huge persona, and we will never be the same people as we were before Oct. 7.”

The day was every parent’s worst nightmare, as Ohnona Look and her husband, Alain, bore witness to their son’s final moments from their Montreal home. They were on a video call with Alexandre as the Hamas assault unfolded and he huddled in a shelter with about 30 other concertgoers.

His mother heard the gunfire and dropped the phone in shock. His father picked it up to try to understand what was happening. When he heard the Arabic phrase “Allahu akbar,” he knew their son was gone.

Ohnona Look says a year later, the emotions come in waves. “It’s a hole in the heart. It’s anger. It’s trauma, because, you know, having a child murdered, and you’re on the phone … it’s something you don’t come back from.”

She spent long hours during the past year trying to learn the circumstances around her son’s death, speaking to survivors who were in the bunker.