Shoot at close range: eyewitness stories of Hamas attack on music festival in Israel

On 7 October, the Supernova electronic music festival was held in the Israeli Negev desert near the border with the Gaza Strip. It gathered about 3,000 visitors from all over the world.

The event coincided with the Hamas attack on Israel. At the site of the festival, militants shot people en masse, and some were kidnapped and taken to the territory of Gaza. So far, more than 250 bodies of the victims have been found.

What is known about the festival?

On 6-7 October, the Brazilian psychedelic trance festival Universo Paralello organised its first event in Israel – Supernova. The event was decided to be held in the Negev desert near Kibbutz Reim, on the border with the Gaza Strip.

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The dates of the festival coincided with Sukkot, a seven-day holiday commemorating the wandering of the Jewish people through the Sinai desert.

The venue included three stages, a campsite and an art space.

The event gathered about 3,000 visitors from different countries of the world.

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Photo: TRIBE of NOVA

Eyewitness stories

As the Israeli N12 TV channel reported, on the morning of 7 October, festival participants heard an air-raid warning. A few minutes later, a car with militants drove in, turned off the electricity and opened fire on the visitors.

According to Ortel, one of the participants of the festival, people started fleeing from the place of the event in their own cars.

“They [Hamas fighters – ed.] shot in bursts, and we got to the point where everyone stopped their cars and started running. I hid in the branches of trees, like a bush, and they just started shooting people. I saw a lot of injured people scattered around, as I sat and tried to understand what was happening,” she describes the events.

The woman did not come out of hiding for almost an hour, after which the militants had left the area. She tried to escape by car, but the terrorists returned. After that, Ortel had to return to her hiding place for another three hours.

“I put my phone on silent mode and then started crawling through the orange grove. Bullets were flying above me. I saw friends who were injured, and suddenly a tank drove up, which I was sure would save me, but then the driver said to me: ‘I can’t let you in; I have a dead man in the tank.’

Many people climbed on top of the tank, and there was shooting around us. I felt that I was not safe. In the middle of the fire, I started to run away and crawled to an orchard for two hours, where I found a quiet place,” Ortel says.

Photo: N12 TV channel

Another festival-goer, Esther Borochov, was saved thanks to the fact that she pretended to be dead. Then she tried to flee the scene in a car, but the driver was shot at close range.

“I couldn’t move my legs. [Israeli] Soldiers came and took us away to the bushes,” the woman says.

Another eyewitness, Gili Yoskovich, was hiding in the millet garden. There she ran away from the car, which was shot at by militants.

“So I was in the middle [of this field] and I was lying on the floor. It was the second hiding place I found and they were just all around me… They were going tree by tree and shooting. Everywhere. From two sides. I saw people were dying all around. I was very quiet. I didn’t cry, I didn’t do anything,” she says.

Three hours later, the woman heard the voices of Israeli soldiers and went out to get help.

Photo: gili.yoskovich/Instagram

Yaniv, a paramedic, was called to the site of the incident. He recalls that the militants have started a massacre at the festival.

“I have never seen anything like this in my life. This was a planned ambush. When people were leaving through emergency exits, units of terrorists were waiting for them there and started simply shooting at them,” he says.

What is known about the victims?

One of the victims is Shani Luk, 30, who has a double citizenship of Germany and Israel.

The videos with her spread online. Her acquaintance recognized her by her dreadlocks and tattoos.

In the footage the armed men are transporting the body of a naked woman with a broken leg and a blooded head in a pick-up truck. The screams “Allahu Akbar!” can be heard in the background which means “Allah is the greatest!”.

Still, Shani’s family believes she might be alive.

“We have some hope. Hamas will be held responsible for hurting her and others,” Shani’s cousin Tom Weintraub Luk says.

PHOTO: shanukkk/Instagram

Among the missing persons there is also a couple – Noa Argamani and Avinatan Or. Their kidnapping was filmed as well.

Thanks to this the couple was recognized by Moshe Or, Avinatan’s brother.

“I saw his girlfriend Noa in the video, she was scared and distraught. I cannot imagine what is happening to her while she is held panicked on a motorcycle by some bastards.

My brother is a great guy, two metres tall, he goes to gym four times a week and is very strong. He was held by, maybe, four or five people, and they were just being taken in the direction of a highway,” he revealed.

So far, the fate of Celine Nagar, a 26-year old French-Israeli woman, is also unknown. She is a mother of a six-month-old baby.

Her husband Idor Hagar tracked the location of the car she was travelling in. She was on the border with the Gaza Strip.

Idor went to look for the vehicle. When he found it, it had bullet holes but there were no blood traces, so he hopes that his wife is alive.

The ZAKA volunteer group which specialises in the search of human remains after terrorist attacks and other catastrophes, reported that it has found over 250 bodies on site of the festival.

What happened?

On the morning of 7 October, Hamas launched a large-scale missile attack on Israel and invaded the territory of the country.

On 9 October, the Israel Defence Forces reported that they have regained control over all settlements on the border with Gaza.

As of 9 October, the number of casualties of Hamas attacks on Israel rose to 800, with more than 2,500 people injured and dozens in a critical condition.

Ukrainian officials managed to take out an injured Ukrainian boy from the Israeli city of Sderot. The Foreign Ministry is currently establishing information about the death of two Ukrainians in Israel and the death of another one in the Gaza Strip.

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