2023-10-09 15:52:12
Nearly 250 people were killed on Saturday, the first day of the offensive launched by Hamas, during a rave party near the border with the Gaza Strip. Several others – the toll is still undetermined – were kidnapped by the Palestinian group.
The party turned into horror. Saturday October 7, thousands of people gathered in the heart of the Negev desert, a few kilometers from the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip, for the first edition of a rave party, Tribe of Nova. But in the early morning, as the party was in full swing, Hamas fighters suddenly invaded, gunning down hundreds of people and kidnapping several others in a surprise offensive of unprecedented scale once morest Israel.
Also read ???? Follow the evolution of the situation in the Middle East hour by hour
“They massacred people in cold blood”
“I have been a Zaka volunteer for 28 years, and following the Meron disaster (a deadly stampede during a Jewish pilgrimage in northern Israel), I thought I had hit rock bottom and I wanted to put an end to it (with Zaka ) following seeing 45 corpses,” Moti Bukjin said by phone as he prepared to return to areas of southern Israel hit by Hamas gunmen since Saturday.
“I thought it was the end of the world, but clearly, things can be much worse, much worse,” he added, his voice shaking with emotion, when recalling the macabre spectacle he witnessed. had to attend. “They massacred people in cold blood in an absolutely inconceivable way,” he said.
07:41 Deadly rave party in Israel: the father of a survivor testifies on France 24 © France24
“If we made the slightest noise, we knew we would be murdered”
Different testimonies tell of the arrival of attackers on motorcycles, armed, shooting at the crowd. In a video posted on social networks, a young woman calls for help when she is kidnapped by men on a motorcycle. Another individual located a few meters from her is taken away by force, his hands behind his back.
On a second video, dozens of panicked festival-goers run across a field, trying to get into their cars, as gunshots ring out. Among them, Ester Borochov, 19 years old.
“They (Hamas fighters) started shooting at us at point blank range,” the young woman testified to the Israeli channel Channel 12. She said she managed to get back to her vehicle before it was stopped by the shots. .
“Another festival-goer took us in his Jeep but the attackers shot him. He lost consciousness and his car overturned in a ditch,” continues Ester Borochov. “My friend and I then pretended to be dead for two and a half hours… Until help arrived. That’s how we survived.”
Shoam Gueta, another festival participant, told the American media NBC News having fled the chaos with a group of 20 people by hiding in the bushes for almost six hours. “We saw the attackers killing people, burning cars, shouting everywhere,” he said. “If we said anything, if we made the slightest noise, we knew we would be murdered.”
“They were everywhere with automatic weapons, stood next to cars and started shooting,” he also said. festival-goer Gili Yoskovich told the BBC. “The terrorists came from four or five places. Some people were shooting at me. I saw people dying all around. The terrorists stayed in the area for three hours.”
A video from the festival site, shot by a drone and published overnight from Sunday to Monday, shows dozens of cars burned or riddled with bullets.
“9/11 and Pearl Harbor combined”
This attack occurred at a time when Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement, launched a surprise offensive of unprecedented scale once morest Israel. After three days, this war has left more than 1,100 dead in total, according to official reports from both sides.
On Monday, Israelis were still reeling from the scale of the Hamas assault, which Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a former Israeli army spokesman, described as “by far the worst day of the history of Israel.
“Never before have so many Israelis been killed by a single attack, let alone by enemy activity in a single day,” he added, comparing the assault to “a 9/11 and a Pearl Harbor rolled into one.”
Also read: What do we know regarding the unprecedented operation carried out by Hamas in Israel?
“Easy targets”
Beyond the many killed, several dozen festival-goers were also taken hostage on Saturday morning. On Monday, Israeli television news were flooded with desperate calls from people seeking information regarding their missing loved ones, reports Irris Makler, France 24 correspondent in Jerusalem. “In the country, the trauma is immense, especially for all those young people who participated in the rave and who saw people being shot as easy targets.”
Read alsoBetween family anguish and promise of a strong response, the insoluble question of Israeli hostages
Abroad too, worried parents are waiting for news from their loved ones who were present at the Tribe of Nova. Among them, the mother of Shani Louk, a 22-year-old German-Israeli, appealed for help to find her daughter following identifying her in a video circulating on social networks.
“We received a video in which we can clearly see our daughter, unconscious, in the car of Hamas members traveling in the Gaza Strip,” she said in a video message carried by several German media. “I ask you to help us if you have any information. Thank you.”
The mother of Jake Marlowe, a 26-year-old Briton, made a similar appeal for her son, saying he had not given any sign of life since the attack. “He was providing security and called me at 4:30 in the morning to tell me that all these rockets were flying over him,” she told the Jewish News on Sunday. “Then, around 5:30 a.m., he texted me saying ‘the signal is very bad, everything is fine, I’ll keep you posted, I promise’, and that he loved me.”
This article has been adapted from English. The original can be found here
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