The images are chilling: thousands of young men and women dance under the first light of dawn and the rhythmic rhythm of the bass, when black dots appear in the sky. Festival-goers gathered in the Negev desert near the Gaza Strip have no idea that Hamas terrorists are launching a large-scale offensive on Israel. They also don't know that the black dots that are getting bigger and bigger are Palestinian fighters perched on paragliders.
At around 6:30 a.m., the first rockets fell on the site of the Nova Festival, an annual rave party in honor of the Sukkot holiday, CNN reported. A few minutes later, gusts of wind were heard and caused huge crowd movements, which were widely relayed on social networks.
In the aftermath of the incident, the fate of thousands of festival-goers remains uncertain. Testimonies indicate that Hamas terrorists were firing into the crowd, raising fears of high casualties. Some Israeli sources, as yet unverifiable, speak of 250 corpses at the site. Videos show many people being forcibly taken away.
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Rocket Launcher Shots
The survivors' testimonies are sometimes terrifying. A 20-year-old participant, Noya Reuven, told The Times of Israel that the terrorists opened fire on the crowd indiscriminately. Another young woman, Esther, told Israeli television that five gunmen shot at her car as she tried to flee. She was rescued by the driver of a jeep, who was later shot dead. She escaped Hamas by pretending to be dead until the IDF arrived.
Chen, another attendee of the rave party, told i24News that heavy weapons were even used against festival-goers. "We were in the middle of a rave party and all of a sudden we were shot at from all sides. We escaped and managed to take refuge under a tank. The terrorists then targeted us with a rocket launcher," he said, still shocked.
Images of festival-goers being forcibly taken away by Hamas went viral. A video showing a young woman, later identified as Noa Argamani, particularly shocked public opinion. She was forcibly taken there on a motorcycle, despite her pleas.
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A Frenchman present at the scene
A 26-year-old French-Israeli man may be among the victims or missing. "Avidan T., originally from Bordeaux, was probably kidnapped in southern Israel by Hamas while he was participating in the music festival," Meyer Habib, an LR MP for the French Abroad, wrote on X (formerly Twitter). He was "one of the organizers of the rave party," the MP told BFMTV. "He sent a message around 9 a.m. yesterday morning. A message of love but also in which we felt a lot of distress. Since then, they have had no news, they have gone around the hospitals" without finding any trace of him, he added.
The fate of a young German woman of Israeli origin, Shani Louk, has also caused a stir on social networks. In a shocking video that has been widely shared, the young woman appears in the back of a Hamas pick-up truck, bare, with one leg disjointed. Terrorists sit on top of her, and others spit on her. She appears inert, but it is not yet known if she is alive. Her mother and cousin finally recognized her, thanks to the tattoos on her legs and her dreadlocks. CNN also confirmed the identity of the young woman.
Many foreign nationals seemed to be present at this rave party. A 26-year-old Briton, Jake Marlowe, is also missing. He had been living in Israel for two years and was providing security for the event. "He is missing, we don't know for sure if he was taken hostage, or if he is dead or in hospital," a spokesman for the Israeli embassy in the UK told the PA news agency.