2023-10-10 08:17:16
Survivors of the rave party massacre in Israel testify in Le Monde
On Saturday morning, the Hamas attack surprised participants in an electronic music festival, which was being held not far from the border with Gaza. Survivors tell «Monde» how they found themselves trapped. The festival-goers, who numbered some 3,500, accounted for a quarter of the victims of the assault, according to initial estimates.
“We danced all night, until the music stopped and we saw the rockets in the sky,” Neta Abir-lev, a 23-year-old waitress, told the French newspaper. The festival-goers begin to disperse while in the distance, explosions continue to resonate. The ground invasion begins. Fighters arrive from several sides, some via motorized paragliders.
The party-goers start running. Some try to leave by car, but find themselves stuck in a traffic jam. Others flee on foot into a field, in the open, or hide in concrete shelters. “I saw the terrorists shooting. And corpses on the ground. I accelerated,” Noam Tal, a participant who managed to reach his car, told Le Monde. He rushes towards the south, but comes up against Hamas commandos, who seem to have besieged several localities. He will finally find refuge with the inhabitants of a village spared by the fighters.
Noam has since returned home. “I’m happy to be home, but I don’t feel like I’m back on Earth,” he told Le Monde. Of the 900 people killed since the Hamas offensive, more than a quarter – or 260 – are festival-goers, according to the Zaka relief association, which removed the bodies from the site. It is not known how many were kidnapped.
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