As Israel was hit by an unprecedented rocket attack from the Gaza Strip on Saturday morning, hundreds of people attending an Israeli music festival were caught in a video running for their lives amid heavy firing by militants at them.
The Israeli army said Hamas fired more than 3,000 rockets, adding that dozens of Hamas troops infiltrated border areas in southern Israel.
The gunmen left multiple revellers dead at the festival event and at least one attendee was taken hostage, a video on social media authenticated.
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The outdoor Nova Festival event in a rural farmland area near the Gaza-Israel border was supposed to be an all-night dance party, celebrating the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. However, as dawn broke, the revellers said they began hearing sirens and rockets.
Details of hostages from the attack are beginning to emerge as family members recognize relatives in videos circulating from Gaza.
Ortel, a survivor who attended the festival, described the scene as chaotic and panic-struck as militants started firing at the convoy of fleeing vehicles.
“Suddenly out of nowhere, shots are coming in,” she told Israel’s Channel 12 television station. “They started shooting in every direction and I took the car keys and just drove and started moving forward to get out of the shots.”
Meanwhile, the Israeli military has sent troops to the southern territories to reconquer them from the Palestinian forces.
Israeli media reported earlier in the day that over 300 people were killed and more than 1,500 others were injured in Israel as a result of the escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. At the same time, the Palestinian Health Ministry said that more than 195 people have been killed and over 1,600 injured in Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.
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