Media release: Palestinians to mark 7 October by holding a Vigil for Gaza

1/10/2026 [Melbourne] The Palestinian community, alongside Indigenous, multicultural and multifaith communities, will hold a Vigil for Gaza on 7 October 2026, from 10am to 6pm at State Library Victoria. 

The event will involve a silent sit-in from 10am to 5pm and a commemorative ceremony from 5pm to 6pm led by grieving families, in response to silenced calls for a permanent ceasefire and a just resolution for Palestine – demands that remain ignored three years after Israel declared its active genocidal assault on Gaza.

For Palestinians, 7 October marks the day the first bombs of Israel’s active genocidal campaign were dropped on Gaza. It was the beginning of three years of annihilation, destruction and displacement – a campaign of eradication that has since extended across occupied Palestine. 

"Israel dropped the first bomb of its military offensive on October 7, 2023, committing the first massacre of its ongoing crimes against humanity. Israel’s campaign has now annihilated more than 74,000 Palestinians in Gaza. End the genocide now", says Tasnim Sammak, who has lost dozens of family members in the October 7 ongoing assault on Gaza.

“We have seen three years of endless crimes against humanity. It is time for humanity to emphasise the prevention of genocide and war, to protect all lives, to free Palestinian prisoner hostages and to end military occupation. The vigil welcomes Jewish community members who, like us Palestinians, want to see a permanent ceasefire,” says Sammak. 

7 October reminds us of the unanswered call to stop the genocide perpetuated by Israeli armed forces in Gaza. At least 320 Palestinians were identified as killed in Gaza on 7 October 2023, following the Israeli government’s declaration of war, with the actual toll likely higher given gaps in identification and reporting. Within twenty days, at least 7,028 Palestinians were recorded killed and 18,482 injured. 

More than 74,000 Palestinian deaths have now been recorded and at least 174,000 injuries reported – figures that cannot account for the full human toll, including those still missing or unrecovered, and deaths resulting from the destruction of the conditions necessary for life.

These losses do not stand apart from a history of Zionist settler colonialism. They form part of a much longer Palestinian experience of ethnic cleansing, military occupation and displacement. For Palestinians, 7 October therefore belongs within both an enduring history of dispossession, colonisation, a 16 year illegal siege on Gaza and the catastrophe that has unfolded since. 

The vigil programme will include moments of reflection, interfaith prayer and readings, and the laying of native Palestinian poppies. At its heart is a simple affirmation: Palestinian lives are worthy of grief, dignity and protection and the Palestinian people have the same right as any other people to remember and mourn those they have lost. 

The public’s presence is a powerful statement of support and unity asserting the protection of Palestinian human life. This fundamental principle of humanity is too often absent from the words and actions of political leaders and zionist voices who have treated Palestinian lives as less worthy of protection, portrayed Palestinians as a threat to be eradicated, and presented Palestinian subjugation and deaths as necessary. Western notions of humanity have failed Palestinians and other dehumanised peoples, revealing a supremacist international order.

The vigil organisers demand a permanent ceasefire and an end to the occupation of Palestine that began in 1948. It is time to enforce an end to genocide and war. It is time for another humanity to prevail, one that does not decide whose lives are worthy of protection and whose suffering can be tolerated.