Watch: A Visual Reconstruction of How the Music Festival Massacre Unfolded
Wall Street Journal has pieced together a visual timeline of the Nova music festival massacre, which took place in a rural farmland area located just 3 miles from Gaza. There are eyewitness accounts saying it took the Israeli Army some five hours to reach the location, but by then, over 260 people had been killed, including many Americans and foreigners.
Festival attendees had been cut off from three sides by the invaders before anyone was even aware. They describe being “hunted by Hamas”. Watch:
As Middle East Eye reported earlier, Civilian survivors of Hamas-led attacks on a music festival and kibbutzim close to Israel’s border fence with Gaza have been speaking to Hebrew media about their experiences.
At the Supernova festival, which took place in the woods next to Reim, a secular kibbutz in southern Israel, witnesses spoke of Hamas fighters on motorcycles opening fire on hundreds of people, who had already begun fleeing the party because of rocket fire launched from the besieged Gaza Strip.
Two-hundred and sixty people have been reported dead following the attack, which began at 6.30 a.m. on Saturday morning.
“Suddenly a van with terrorists arrived in front of us and they started shooting us,” one survivor told Haaretz. “They came from all directions, people went like sheep to the slaughter.”
The Israeli army took five hours to arrive on the scene, eyewitnesses said, as those present hid in the undergrowth and police officers present acted as security forces. Others said that dozens of people had hid in ditches and orchards, begging for help as Hamas fighters swept through the area.
Michal, an Israeli survivor, told Kan News that she ran into a small cabin, which had about 50 people in it. The Hamas fighters shot at those in the cabin, she said, and in a brief moment of quiet an Israeli policewoman present told the group that if they wanted to survive they should run.
But, Michal said, the route out was blocked and she was confronted by five Hamas pick-up trucks. She lay under a tank for six hours and then, “at some point, they threw a grenade at us”. Michal said she was hit by a bullet in the leg.
Eyewitness accounts of the Israeli music festival massacre near Gaza border.
— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) October 11, 2023
Deeply disturbing.
pic.twitter.com/EeWUEZljlA
“It was hell on earth,” another survivor told the Israeli broadcaster. Survivors have spoken of their shock at the response from the Israeli army. “They told us that the army was guarding us,” one festival-goer told Israel’s Channel 13 News, “we didn’t want to go home.”
The outlet reported that the young men and women “simply had no chance against dozens of armed terrorists, who were spread out along all the access roads to the party”.
One attendee, Omer, told Haaretz he had seen gunfire coming from all directions. People ran, looking to get into vehicles to escape the attack. Omer escaped with some others but found the road leading out littered with burnt-out cars. He said gunmen opened fire on his group: “It was a battlefield.”
Mor Bayder broke down in tears during a live TV interview, recalling the moment when she saw her slain Israeli grandmother in a video posted to the woman's Facebook page by the Hamas militant who killed her. https://t.co/zlz5Lv2utx pic.twitter.com/sALLQ0QmoZ
— ABC News (@ABC) October 11, 2023
It was mayhem,” another witness said. “They came from everywhere.” Michael Zrihan, the uncle of festival-goer Shahar Mantsur, told Haaretz that after he reached his nephew’s girlfriend over the phone, she told him Mantsur had “gotten a bullet in the neck, and she was hiding in the car”.
Two hours later, they spoke again. “She was screaming, ‘I’m being shot at, I don’t know what to do’, and we’ve lost contact since then.”
Following the attack, the area the festival took place in was strewn with bodies, burnt-out cars, bullets and ammunition casings. The Zaka rescue organization told Hebrew media that at least 250 bodies had been removed from the scene.
https://twitter.com/ThomasVLinge/status/1712090002576777504?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1712090002576777504%7Ctwgr%5E4810ce55917badc71057325b0ad2ddfc565e8017%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fgeopolitical%2Fisraeli-festival-attack-survivors-describe-hell-earth-detailed-testimonies-emerge
We escaped the #supernova festival massacre.
— Shye K (@ShyeKlein) October 10, 2023
Here are some of the videos we took.
This first one my cousin filmed. #tribeofnova #Israel_under_attack @Haaretz pic.twitter.com/NVz2cGfS5r
