A blast occured near the Israeli embassy in Denmark today as the world marked the one-year anniversary of the Hamas October 7 attack on Israel.

The blast occurred some 500 metres from the embassy in Copenhagen and came five days after two explosions near the building for which two Swedish nationals have been remanded in custody.

Hezbollah today said it targeted Israeli troops in a south Lebanon border village.

Hezbollah fighters "bombed... a gathering of Israeli forces in the Maroun al-Ras park with a rocket salvo", the Iran-backed group said in a statement.

Israeli military today said that air raid sirens were activated in central Israel after rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip. 

"Sirens sounded in central Israel due to projectiles fired from the Gaza Strip," said the army statement as the country marked the one-year anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attacks. 

With candles, prayers and music, commemorations for the October 7 attack began in Israel's Tel Aviv at a ceremony to mark the first anniversary of the Hamas attack at the Nova music festival. The anniversary comes with Israel engaged in a fresh war in Lebanon against Hezbollah and preparing to retaliate against Iran, raising fears of an even wider conflict in Middle East. 

As thousands marched in US cities demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza ahead of Hamas' attack anniversary, a man attempted to self-immolate in protest.

He succeeded in lighting his left arm ablaze before bystanders and police rushed to his aid.

Israel President Isaac Herzog began the day today with a moment of silence at 6:29 am -- the moment the Hamas' attack began -- at Kibbutz Reim, the site of the Nova music festival where at least 370 people were killed by Palestinian group on October 7.

He was seen hugging the families of those killed in the attack.

Israel is fighting a "long war", the country's military chief told its soldiers and commanders a day ahead of the first anniversary of the 2023 Hamas attack, vowing to wipe out its "enemies" who seek to destroy Israel. 

Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, Chief of the General Staff of Israel, praised their commitment and courage as the Middle East stared at uncertainty, plunging into more violence by the day. He asserted every day was becoming worse for their "enemies".

"This is a long war, measured not only by capabilities but also by willpower and perseverance over time. For our enemies - every month, every week, and every day is worse than the one before," the army chief said in his message.

Australians gathered for vigils today to mark the first anniversary of Hamas's attack on Israel.

At Sydney's famed Bondi Beach, participants holding Israeli and Australian flags listened in silence to a reading of the names of Israel's 101 hostages still held by Hamas.

French President Emmanuel Macron today paid tributes to the victims of the Hamas October 7 attack on Israel.

"The pain remains, as vivid as it was a year ago. The pain of the Israeli people. Ours. The pain of wounded humanity," he said in an English-language post on the social media platform X, also posting in Hebrew and French.

"We do not forget the victims, the hostages, or the families with broken hearts from absence or waiting. I send them our fraternal thoughts," he wrote.

On the morning of October 7, 2023, Ismail Abu Hatab, a photojournalist, woke up to the deafening roar of rockets being fired from Gaza towards Israel. "It felt like the world was ending," he recalled. Ismail instinctively grabbed his phone, seeking clarity in the chaos. The headlines were unthinkable reports of a large-scale attack initiated by the Palestinian group Hamas on Israel. "Has the resistance really pulled this off?" he wondered in shock.

For 32-year-old Ismail, the initial hours were a blur of activity. "I immediately started preparing - charging my camera equipment, emptying memory disks on my laptop, and reaching out to my fellow journalists and photographers to verify the situation," Ismail told NDTV. 

It has been a year since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted, a conflict that has brought unspeakable devastation to the Gaza Strip. The days since October 7 have stretched into months of relentless bombings, displacement, and desperation.

Iran has summoned the Australian ambassador in Tehran over what it called his country's biased stance regarding Iran's recent missle attack on Israel.

The Australian envoy, Ian McConville, was summoned on grounds of bias regarding Iran's response to what Tehran called "the Zionist regime", in a reference to Israel.

However, Australia "makes no apology for the views it has expressed about Iran's actions or the actions of its ambassador to Australia", a spokesperson for its department of foreign affairs and trade said.

Israel today said that at least four projectiles were fired from the Gaza Strip just minutes after the country began to formally commemorate last year's October 7 Hamas attacks. 

"Following the sirens that sounded at 06:31 in several communities near the Gaza Strip, four projectiles were identified crossing from the southern Gaza Strip. Three of the projectiles were intercepted by the IAF (air force) and a fallen projectile was identified in an open area," the Israeli military said in a statement. 

The military said sirens also sounded in the Upper Galilee area of northern Israel, with no let-up in the daily rocket fire from neighbouring Lebanon, where Israeli forces are fighting Hezbollah militants.

The mother of a British woman, who was among those taken hostage by Hamas on October 7, has written a heartfelt letter to her daughter and urged UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to ensure it's delivered in Gaza.

Israel has deployed more troops to defend southern communities and areas bordering Gaza, ahead of the anniversary of the Hamas attack.

"The IDF's (army) Gaza Division has been reinforced with several platoons, with forces stationed to defend both the communities and the border area," the military said in a statement.

"The soldiers are fully equipped to defend the region in coordination with local security forces," it said.

Inside Gaza, the military said three divisions were working to "dismantle terrorist infrastructure and degrade Hamas's capabilities".

Hezbollah said it hit a military base south of Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, with "Fadi 1" missiles. Israeli media reported 10 people were injured in the country's north.

Israel continued air strikes in Beirut's southern suburbs on Sunday as part of its campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, where the Iran-backed group is based. 

The Israeli military said it "struck Hezbollah terrorist targets and weapons storage facilities in Beirut". It also said Israeli warplanes hit targets belonging to Hezbollah's intelligence headquarters in Beirut.

(Photo: Reuters)

On October 7, 2023, Hamas - a militant group which controlled Gaza - crossed over into Israel and launched 'Operation Al Aqsa Flood', a deadly terror attack, and killed over 1,200 people across the country.

Hamas has praised its October 7 attack on Israel ahead of the first anniversary of the deadly storming of southern Israeli towns.

"The crossing of the glorious 7th of October shattered the illusions the enemy had created for itself, convincing the world and the region of its supposed superiority and capabilities," Qatar-based Hamas member Khalil al-Hayya said in a video statement on Sunday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday vowed to achieve victory and said his country's military "completely transformed reality" in the year since Hamas's October 7 attack.

He told troops Israel "will win" as they fought in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon and prepared to strike Iran, 

"A year ago, we suffered a terrible blow. Over the past 12 months, we have completely transformed reality," Netanyahu said during a visit to the Lebanon border.

As the war in Gaza broke out, the conflict in Lebanon also started with cross-border strikes by Iran-backed Hezbollah in solidarity with Hamas. 

More than 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon in nearly a year of fighting, most in the past two weeks.

Tensions have subsequently spilled into the surrounding Middle East region.

In the past one year in the Gaza Strip, Israel has bombed more than 40,000 Hamas targets, found 4,700 tunnel shafts and destroyed 1,000 rocket launcher sites. On one-year anniversary of the Israel-Hamas war, the Israeli military today said its 726 soldiers had been killed since October 7, 2023. Of those, 380 died in the October 7 attacks and 346 in Gaza combat starting October 27, 2023.

Injured troops numbered 4,576 since that date. Fifty-six soldiers died as a result of operational accidents, which the military did not define.

Today marks a year after the Palestinian group Hamas attacked Israel, triggering the war in the Gaza Strip. On October 7 last year, Hamas, a group backed by Iran, attacked southern Israeli towns, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies. More than 100 hostages remain held by Hamas.

Israel's subsequent military assault on Gaza has since then killed more than 41,000 people, mostly civilians.