About a month after the terrible massacre, an official memorial service was held Saturday evening for the hundreds of victims of the massacre at a "Supernova" party in Re'im on October 7, at the "Star of the Sea" hall in Caesarea. The event began at 21 p.m. and included a lighting display in which hundreds of lanterns would illuminate the sky. The event was attended by friends and relatives of the victims, and singers Osher Cohen and Yishai Rivo performed.
About a month after the massacre: Rally in memory of the victims of the nature party "Nova" // Shmuel Buchris
The Nuba community suffered the largest number of murders on the day of the massacre. In the massacre at the Supernova festival, in a forest near Kibbutz Re'im near the Gaza Strip, at least 357 people were murdered, out of about 3,000 participants, and in addition to about ten police officers out of forty who guarded the party, nine of whom are still listed as missing. In addition to the murdered and wounded, about 27 festival participants were abducted by terrorists into the Gaza Strip.
"We paid a heavy price"
The producers of the Nova party, Nimrod Arnon, Itai Omri Okabi and Omri Sassi, spoke tonight and spoke about the heavy losses: "We established the event two and a half years ago, with the aim of uniting a group of young people who want to dance," they said. " Slowly we became a global movement and started collaborations with productions and brands from abroad. The supernova was an international event."
The party at Nova, photo: Ido Darby
"A disaster has befallen us and this is a heavy price. We stopped the music - in the middle of an event whose message was peace and love. The closest circles were hacked and penetrated into the most personal place possible."
Omri Sassi spoke and said: "Our goal was to build a safe, pleasant and liberated space, one where people could come and feel that they had no barrier in their bodies. The last event was the biggest we've done to date. A lot of people came from abroad, the United States and Brazil. At some point, at the height of the event, at sunrise, at the happiest and deepest moment of the day, terrorists burst into the scene and began to murder people."
The incident was approved by all security agencies
The founders of the Supernova party, speaking officially for the first time since the massacre, stressed that the event had been approved by all security, military and police officials and that the party itself was attended by about 27 armed policemen, in addition to a security team of 80 security guards.
The bottleneck created by the cars of the partygoers who tried to escape the party in bad guys, Photo: AFP
Arnin also told the audience that he lost his sister, Ayelet Arnin, who was murdered at the age of 22. "I lost my little sister Ayelet, a media professional, she was expected to be big and she won't get to fulfill it. The closest circles were hacked and infiltrated our most personal place," he said of her.
Omri Sassi lost his uncle, Avi Sassi (a Los Angeles resident) and his cousin Nitzan Rahum, who was four months pregnant. Nitzan's boyfriend, Lidor Levy, was also murdered in the Hamas massacre. He said that after the massacre at the party, for a week, part of the production team returned to the field to locate survivors or bodies under fire.
A memorial service for the victims of the party. Photos of the murdered, photo: AP
Sassi answered questions about the party and the time it took for a military force to arrive. "The event was done with permission and license. Every place in Israel is close to some kind of border. The party was planned there in advance, with a license and all the permits. No warning was sent to us there during the night. Everything was done before the book."
Don't want to talk about guilty
"The only way out of the scene of the massacre was to the east," they said. "We started evacuating a crowd with the police to a hammer area, at the request of the security forces. The people who remained at the scene were murdered. Groups of people tried to hide in the area and the terrorists went through all the toilets and murdered them all."
Sassi said: "I don't want to say who's to blame. We know the strength of the IDF. The first military force arrived, in my estimation, at 10:40 A.M. You have to understand that they got stuck on the blocked roads, and on the way to us they fought battles with terrorists. I was in contact with someone from the force and told them that hundreds of terrorists had arrived with missiles and grenades, vans and mages. He said they were advancing while fighting the terrorists. So it took time."
Photos of those murdered at a bad guy party, Photo: AP
"In the days following the incident, a significant portion of the production team returned to the field to locate bodies or survivors. We worked under live fire for a whole week. It was only as we were moving that we realized that we had gone through a traumatic experience."
Want to get back to dancing
Omri Kochavi said tonight at the memorial ceremony for the victims of the Nature Party: "When the music was replaced by the noises of war, we were without water, unable to reach the communities. The police cars were taken over. I found myself taking care of two Gabbays. No one knows what happened to Shani. There was a cook. The event is not over. We live it 24/7." Gabbay served as the party's selector, and has not been located since.
On the rehabilitation of the survivors, Kochavi said: "We decided to build a compound, to deal together with the horrors we went through. We were in Burj in Binyamina, we were at Star of the Sea in Caesarea, we set up a therapeutic space for our community and our people. Our goal was to take responsibility for our audience, we bring our audience."
Kochavi added: "People went out to the road with their cars and there they carried out a massacre there. We went through something we had no control over. We will take care of all our people. We love the country and want to go back to dancing in the country. We are a strong people. I believe we will explore dancing and that will be our victory."
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