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**Israel knew of the attacks in advance. Intelligence was repeatedly ignored.**

>Israeli officials obtained Hamas’s battle plan for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened, documents, emails and interviews show. But Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out.

>Hamas followed the blueprint with shocking precision. The document called for a barrage of rockets at the outset of the attack, drones to knock out the security cameras and automated machine guns along the border, and gunmen to pour into Israel en masse in paragliders, on motorcycles and on foot — all of which happened on Oct. 7.

>Then, in July, just three months before the attacks, a veteran analyst with Unit 8200, Israel’s signals intelligence agency, warned that Hamas had conducted an intense, daylong training exercise that appeared similar to what was outlined in the blueprint.

>One of the most important objectives outlined in the document was to overrun the Israeli military base in Re’im, which is home to the Gaza division responsible for protecting the region. Other bases that fell under the division’s command were also listed.

>Hamas carried out that objective on Oct. 7, rampaging through Re’im and overrunning parts of the base.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240116065408/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html

>Even in May, when intelligence analysts raised alarms about Hamas training exercises, Israeli officials did not increase troop levels in the South.

>Like other bases, Re’im was understaffed because of the holiday. A brigade commander and key staff were away from the base, according to a senior military officer. They were summoned back before dawn, officials said, as Israeli intelligence officials tried to make sense of unusual Hamas activity just over the border in Gaza.

>Many soldiers, though, were allowed to keep sleeping. One told The Times that some did not know they were under attack until Hamas was in their sleeping quarters. Several were killed in their bunks. Others barricaded themselves in safe rooms.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/30/world/middleeast/israeli-military-hamas-failures.html

>At least three months prior to the attack, surveillance soldiers serving on a base in Nahal Oz reported signs that something unusual was underway at the already-tumultuous Gaza border, situated a kilometer from them.

>The activity reported by the soldiers included information on Hamas operatives conducting training sessions multiple times a day, digging holes and placing explosives along the border. According to the accounts of the soldiers, no action was taken by those who received the reports.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/surveillance-soldiers-warned-of-hamas-activity-on-gaza-border-for-months-before-oct-7/

>These included reports about Hamas’ preparations near the border fence, its drone activity in recent months, its efforts to knock out cameras, the extensive use of vans and motorcycles, and even rehearsals for the shelling of tanks.
The spotters believe Hamas was actually being rather negligent: it didn’t try to hide anything and its actions were out in the open. But throughout this period, they say senior officers in the IDF’s Gaza Division and Southern Command refused to listen to their warnings.

>The spotters believe Hamas was actually being rather negligent: it didn’t try to hide anything and its actions were out in the open. But throughout this period, they say senior officers in the IDF’s Gaza Division and Southern Command refused to listen to their warnings.

>According to Yaara, three hours, or even two hours, would have given the young spotters time to prepare. “But nobody thought to tell us. The IDF left us like sitting ducks on a range. The fighters at least had weapons and died as heroes. The spotters who had been abandoned by the army were simply slaughtered, without any opportunity to defend themselves.”

https://archive.is/W02jL

>The night before Hamas' assault, an accumulation of signs or fragments of information aroused certain concern. Two telephone consultations were held during the night among the southern region of the Shin Bet security service, the IDF’s Intelligence Corps, the operations division and Southern Command with the knowledge of IDF Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi. A separate consultation was held at the Shin Bet with the head of the agency, Ronen Bar.
There was significant nervousness at the command. At the Shin Bet, it was claimed that the information involved an exercise. The Intelligence Corps shared this assessment and didn’t recommend any increased state of alert. That was the case with both of the consultations in the space of a few hours. On the Shin Bet’s recommendation and with military approval at the highest level, no steps were taken.

>There was significant nervousness at the command. At the Shin Bet, it was claimed that the information involved an exercise. The Intelligence Corps shared this assessment and didn’t recommend any increased state of alert. That was the case with both of the consultations in the space of a few hours. On the Shin Bet’s recommendation and with military approval at the highest level, no steps were taken.

>"On Saturday, right before the start of the attack, the PM's military secretary received a call from the Shin Bet regarding troubling indications of "suspicious organizing." Following this call, while deliberating whether to call the chief of staff's office, the screen filled with warnings and rocket sirens. At this point the information was delivered to Netanyahu, and he left for IDF HQ."

https://archive.is/egHie#selection-747.0-747.402

>Israel was warned by Egypt of potential violence three days before Hamas' deadly cross-border raid, a US congressional panel chairman has said.

>An Egyptian intelligence official told the Associated Press news agency this week that Cairo had repeatedly warned the Israelis "something big" was being planned from Gaza.

>"We have warned them an explosion of the situation is coming, and very soon, and it would be big. But they underestimated such warnings," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

>The Cairo official said Israeli officials had played down the threat from Gaza, instead focusing on the West Bank.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67082047

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**Despite the intelligence the IDF had no plan to respond to such an attack.**

>Israel’s military was undermanned, out of position and so poorly organized that soldiers communicated in impromptu WhatsApp groups and relied on social media posts for targeting information. Commandos rushed into battle armed only for brief combat. Helicopter pilots were ordered to look to news reports and Telegram channels to choose targets.

>And perhaps most damning: The Israel Defense Forces did not even have a plan to respond to a large-scale Hamas attack on Israeli soil, according to current and former soldiers and officers. If such a plan existed on a shelf somewhere, the soldiers said, no one had trained on it and nobody followed it. The soldiers that day made it up as they went along.

>“There was no defense plan for a surprise attack such as the kind we have seen on Oct. 7,” said Amir Avivi, a brigadier general in the reserves and a former deputy commander of the Gaza Division, which is responsible for protecting the region.

>That lack of preparation is at odds with a founding principle of Israeli military doctrine. From the days of David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister and defense minister, the goal was to always be on the offensive — to anticipate attacks and fight battles in enemy territory.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/30/world/middleeast/israeli-military-hamas-failures.html

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**Hamas did not know about the festival when they attacked.**

>The security establishment is increasingly assessing that the terrorists who carried out the massacre on October 7 did not know in advance about the Nova Festival, which was being held near Kibbutz Reim, and decided to arrive at the venue after discovering that a mass event was taking place there. The security establishment's assessment is based, among other things, on the interrogations of the terrorists and a police investigation of the incident, which indicates that the terrorists intended to arrive at Kibbutz Reim and the kibbutzim in the area.

**The festival duration was extended at the last minute to take place on the 7th with permission of the military.**

>Additionally, according to police sources, the party was planned to take place on Thursday and Friday, and on Tuesday evening of that week, the army approved the event organizers to hold it on Saturday as well, following the organizers' request. The last-minute change reinforces the assessment that Hamas was unaware of the event.

https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/2023-11-18/ty-article/0000018b-e1a5-d168-a3ef-f5ff4d070000

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Note that the ticket sales post from the festival organiser does give a date of 6-7 October with doors opening at 22:00 on the 6th so it is unclear if this information is in error or if the site was updated after the date was changed. The facebook event saying tickets are on sale was created 21 June 2023.

https://www.facebook.com/events/818024429937407

https://www.eventer.co.il/event/novaparalellotranslate/qCqCL

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**The festival was moved to that location two days before it started.**

>Universo Paralello was not originally intended to take place at the Re’im site, with organizers moving it to this location only two days before it started, when another site in southern Israel fell through.

https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/israel-music-festival-attack-artist-manager-account-massacre-1235436829/

**IDF troops did not respond to the attack at the festival for hours.**

>Gaster and those he was with turned the villa into a command center, contacting IDF, other Israeli security services and “all of our friends that we know personally that have firearms that have connections that can go there.”

>Gaster says it took IDF and special forces a few hours to arrive on site, with those who were there attempting to defend themselves in the meantime.  


https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/israel-music-festival-attack-artist-manager-account-massacre-1235436829/

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**Local military command considered the festival location too dangerous and expressed concern but higher military command approved it anyway. The festival was not evacuated as soon as it could have been.**

>Israeli media reported that the lawsuit also said that senior officers in the Gaza Division of the IDF expressed concerns about a large gathering so close to the Gaza border, which still resulted in the approval of the event’s location.

>It was also noted that a senior operations officer of the Gaza Division opposed the holding of the "Nova" party because it was an unnecessary security risk and even emphasized that the IDF would have difficulty securing the party throughout the weekend, because it was the Simchat Torah holiday and many soldiers went home.

>Despite his warnings and warnings of additional officers needed, permission to hold the party. According to the prosecutors, no one in the IDF or the police informed the approximately 3,500 participants of the Nova party about security concerns.

>The lawsuit also claimed that since security forces were reportedly aware of the development of an unusual security situation on the night of October 6th and the early morning hours of the 7th, participants were still not sent home from the event.

>"It is incomprehensible," the court wrote, "how the defendants did not order the party to be dispersed immediately."

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-780328


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**Israeli colonel says helicopter gunships fired at vehicles indiscriminately in a Mass Hannibal.**

>We don't know whether the hostages were hit once gunships and drones started to fire at the fence, once they saw the mass traffic through the fence that was coming in and coming out. Hannibal Directive was probably deployed because once you detect a hostage situation, this is Hannibal. But the Hannibal we have been conducting drills for over the past 20 years relates to the case of a single vehicle containing hostages; you know which part of the fence it comes through, what side of the road it would move to, and even which road. What we saw here was a "Mass Hannibal." There were many openings in the fence, thousands of people in many different vehicles, both with hostages and without hostages. It was an impossible mission to identify and to do what they did. I know that whoever had the weapons systems available, both drones and gunship pilots, did whatever they could without the coordination with ground forces, because these weren't around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkjRqAJYDUg

---

**Helicopter pilots were unable to distinguish between armed targets and civillians and fired heavily without picking their targets.**

>The first pair of attack helicopters that were on immediate alert for the Gaza Division arrived at the perimeter about an hour or more after the events began, around 7:30-8:00, from the Ramat David camp in the north. This was despite the fact that the mother squadrons of the Apache helicopters were at Camp Ramon, which is closer to the Strip. At Ramon, they quickly realized that something unusual was developing and sent up, with the commander of the 190th Squadron, Lt. Col. A himself, a helicopter gunship that arrived at the perimeter at 8:32.

>After the pilots realized that it was extremely difficult to distinguish between a terrorist and a soldier or civilian within the occupied outposts and settlements, a decision was made that the first mission of the attack helicopters and armed anti-aircraft gunners was to stop the flow of terrorists and the murderous crowd that was pouring into Israeli territory through the breaches in the fence. Throughout the day of fighting, 28 attack helicopters fired all the ammunition in their bellies, in reloading rounds. This involved hundreds of 30mm cannon shells (the effect of a grenade for each shell) as well as Hellfire missiles. The rate of fire against the thousands of terrorists was tremendous at first, and only at a certain point did the pilots begin to slow down the attacks and carefully choose their targets.


>The Hamas army, it turns out, deliberately made it difficult for the helicopter pilots and drone operators: the investigation revealed that the invading forces were asked in recent briefings to walk slowly into or within the settlements and outposts, and under no circumstances to run, in order to make the pilots think that they were Israelis. This deception worked for a considerable time, until the Apache pilots realized that all restrictions had to be bypassed. Only around 9:00 did some of them begin to spray the terrorists with their cannons on their own, without permission from higher-ups.


https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/b111niukzt#google_vignette

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**Israeli attack helicopters fired on the festival.**

>According to a police source, an investigation into the incident also shows that an IDF attack helicopter that arrived at the scene from the Ramat David base fired at the terrorists and apparently also hit several of the partygoers who were there.

https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/2023-11-18/ty-article/0000018b-e1a5-d168-a3ef-f5ff4d070000

---


**Most of the bodies were burned consistent with an airstrike.**

>How did we get to the point where there are so many atrocities, but no conclusive evidence for them?

>Unfortunately, forensic evidence is almost nonexistent, because most of the bodies were burned. Therefore, the most important testimony is that of that survivor of the party who tells what she saw. Look, no one understood the magnitude of the event on October 7, including the issues of sexual violence. It took a few days for it to sink in. People were busy identifying the dead and notifying the families. Citizens didn't even know if their family members were kidnapped, killed, burned, or missing.

https://web.archive.org/web/20250316072212/https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/yokra13715836

---

**The damage to the vehicles at the festival is so extensive that it could not be accomplished by light weapons and is more consistent with wreckage from an airstrike.**

https://web.archive.org/web/20250118131920im_/https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/cdn-cgi/image/f=auto,w=740,q=75/picserver5/crop_images/2023/12/13/H1ZYVm1wUT/H1ZYVm1wUT_0_59_1300_732_0_x-large.jpg

---

**What happened at the festival was covered up after to prevent investigation.**

>A few days after the horrific massacre that took place there, bulldozers also stormed the vast complex of the Nova party in Ra'im. A guard from the transportation company made sure that the workers did not take pictures. Not only did they not take pictures; at least during the many hours we were there, no state reporters were seen. And, given the general confusion that still prevailed in the country, it was strange to see them come so early. Doesn't anyone want to preserve something from the horrific event?

>More importantly, the party complex and its surroundings are a huge crime scene (many crimes), with endless findings, all of which are relevant to evidence that must be collected meticulously and in accordance with the laws of evidence confiscation and preservation, and analyzed and brought to court. All of this happened in a very limited manner, according to three sources familiar with the matter. Then the bulldozers arrived and wiped out every trace of the party. The thousands of vehicles that arrived at the scene, some of which had their revelers killed by the murderers' bullets, were loaded by special cranes and transported to another scene.

**Dead bodies were not properly documented to determine cause of death and injuries sustained.**

>Worse still, despite internationally recognized protocols, such as that of the Red Cross, in most cases the ZAF personnel were content with only partially opening the body bag, and photographing only the deceased's head and perhaps the chest or hands. In this way, most of the body surface of most of the bodies was not documented, which does not and will never allow us to know why they died, or whether, for example, they were sexually abused.

>"The bodies were not photographed as required and they did not bother to document the injuries," concludes the internal Health Ministry document presented to us by the same former senior official, "so that a significant part of the propaganda effort to present evidence of cruelty and abuse of the murdered went down the drain.

https://web.archive.org/web/20250316072212/https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/yokra13715836

---

**Kibbutz residents were killed by the IDF. The televised destruction to Kibbutz buildings was caused by IDF tank shells.**

>Yasmin Porat, the Kibbutz Be’eri survivor who told Israeli radio that Israeli security forces “undoubtedly” killed a large number of their own civilians following the Hamas assault on 7 October.

>Porat states that the Palestinian fighters – who she says treated her and the other Israeli civilians “humanely” – intended to “kidnap us to Gaza. Not to murder us.”

>She adds that “after we were there for two hours with the abductors, the police arrive. A gun battle takes place that our police started.”

>They eliminated everyone, including the hostages. Because there was very, very heavy crossfire. I was freed at approximately 5:30. The fighting apparently ended at 8:30. After insane crossfire, two tank shells were shot into the house. It’s a small kibbutz house, nothing big. You saw it on the news. Not a large place. And at that moment everyone was killed. There was quiet, except for one survivor that came out of the garden, Hadas.

https://electronicintifada.net/content/israeli-forces-shot-their-own-civilians-kibbutz-survivor-says/38861

>His voice broke as he remembered his partner, who was besieged in the Kibbutz at the same time. According to him, it was only on Monday night and only after the commanders on the ground made difficult decisions — including shelling houses with their occupants in order to eliminate the terrorists along with the hostages — that the IDF completed the takeover of the kibbutz. The price was terrible: at least 112 Be'eri residents were killed.

https://archive.md/JtyES

>Building after building has been destroyed, whether in the Hamas assault or in the fighting that followed, nearby trees splintered and walls reduced to concrete rubble from where Israeli tanks blasted the Hamas militants where they were hiding. Floors collapsed on floors. Roof beams were tangled and exposed like rib cages.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/11/it-was-a-pogrom-beeri-survivors-horrific-attack-hamas-terrorists

---

**Israel let the attack happen.**

>Their judgment that night might have been different had they been listening to traffic on the hand-held radios of Hamas militants. But Unit 8200, Israel’s signals intelligence agency, had stopped eavesdropping on those networks a year earlier because they saw it as a waste of effort.


https://web.archive.org/web/20231101005217/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/29/world/middleeast/israel-intelligence-hamas-attack.html


July 2023:

>The bill to overturn the reasonableness standard, which would end the High Court's authority to strike down government decisions that it deems unreasonable, passed the third and final Knesset vote needed to ratify it into law on Monday afternoon.

>This bill is a key component of the plan to weaken the judiciary led by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Mass protests against the legislation have taken place throughout Israel in recent weeks, including a four-day march of tens of thousands of people from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. A large-scale rally in support of the judicial overhaul also took place in Tel Aviv on Sunday night.

https://archive.is/B4ZeC#selection-729.0-729.246

>For over seven months, Israelis have been rallying across the country against their government's efforts to dramatically weaken the justice system and give almost unlimited power to the Benjamin Netanyahu-led coalition.
In recent weeks, the resistance to the judicial overhaul has entered uncharted territory, with tens of thousands of Israeli army reservists announcing the suspension of their voluntary service until the judicial coup stops, sending shockwaves across the military and political arenas.

>In recent weeks, the resistance to the judicial overhaul has entered uncharted territory, with tens of thousands of Israeli army reservists announcing the suspension of their voluntary service until the judicial coup stops, sending shockwaves across the military and political arenas.

https://archive.is/6Cy3l#selection-729.0-737.284

>The Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff, Herzl Halevi, sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning that unilaterally revoking the reasonableness standard could lead to the public losing faith in the IDF and harm the army's cohesion.

https://archive.is/JMhM2#selection-739.0-739.248

>The Israeli Air Force has reduced the number of flying hours in one part of its helicopter pilots’ course, after nearly half of the reservist instructors have refused to report for duty in protest against the government's judicial overhaul legislation.

https://archive.is/HYgUL#selection-739.0-739.252

>On Friday, over 1,000 Israeli Air Force reserve officers, including pilots, navigators and special forces, signed a letter saying that they would not report for voluntary reserve duty should the legislation pass. If they follow through with the warning, the air force will no longer be operationally prepared for war. They were joined by some 10,000 IDF reservists on Saturday night, who also pledged to suspend their voluntary service due to the judicial overhaul plan.

https://archive.is/BvzZ6#selection-881.0-889.106








>The lawsuit blames the Israeli army for not having sufficient forces to adequately protect the concert, which took place very near the Gaza border and was organized with approval from senior army officials.

>The lawsuit further blames the army for failing to notify concert organizers when signs of a possible Hamas attack emerged late the night before, on Friday 6 October.

https://thecradle.co/articles/nova-festival-survivors-sue-israeli-state-for-army-negligence




Over a decade, Netanyahu consistently cultivated Hamas’ rule in the Gaza Strip to slough off international pressure to renew the diplomatic process with the competing Palestinian camp, that of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. He ignored a strategic warning issued by the research division of Military Intelligence six years ago, about an explosion that would occur in the Palestinian arena. The prime minister advocated a policy of rounds of fighting, and stopped every significant military operation in Gaza before it got to the ground maneuver stage.

Upon returning to power last December, Netanyahu adopted the policy of Naftali Bennett’s, Yair Lapid’s and Benny Gantz’s “government of change” and allowed 17,000 Gazan workers to enter Israel, along with the continuing infusion of Qatari money into Gaza, which had begun under his premiership. The money helped Hamas prepare the war, while the workers photographed the communities around the Gaza Strip and provided the organization with effective operational intelligence ahead of the assault.

https://archive.is/aJXcd

>For years, the Qatari government had been sending millions of dollars a month into the Gaza Strip — money that helped prop up the Hamas government there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel not only tolerated those payments, he had encouraged them.

>Allowing the payments — billions of dollars over roughly a decade — was a gamble by Mr. Netanyahu that a steady flow of money would maintain peace in Gaza, the eventual launching point of the Oct. 7 attacks, and keep Hamas focused on governing, not fighting.




https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-qatar-money-prop-up-hamas.html










>“Around 6:30 in the morning we started hearing explosions,” Gaster says. “We went out of the backstage and we saw a full bombardment everywhere. It was hundreds of rockets and mortars flying from everywhere and explosions all around us.”  


https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/israel-music-festival-attack-artist-manager-account-massacre-1235436829/


>"We estimate that about 4,400 people were present at the event, the vast majority of whom managed to escape following a decision to disperse the event that was made four minutes after the rocket barrage," says a senior police officer. Police analysis shows that many of the partygoers managed to escape because it was decided to stop the party about half an hour before shots were heard.



https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/2023-11-18/ty-article/0000018b-e1a5-d168-a3ef-f5ff4d070000


>The first pair of attack helicopters that were on immediate alert for the Gaza Division arrived at the perimeter about an hour or more after the events began, around 7:30-8:00, from the Ramat David camp in the north. This was despite the fact that the mother squadrons of the Apache helicopters were at Camp Ramon, which is closer to the Strip. At Ramon, they quickly realized that something unusual was developing and sent up, with the commander of the 190th Squadron, Lt. Col. A himself, a helicopter gunship that arrived at the perimeter at 8:32.

>After the pilots realized that it was extremely difficult to distinguish between a terrorist and a soldier or civilian within the occupied outposts and settlements, a decision was made that the first mission of the attack helicopters and armed anti-aircraft gunners was to stop the flow of terrorists and the murderous crowd that was pouring into Israeli territory through the breaches in the fence. Throughout the day of fighting, 28 attack helicopters fired all the ammunition in their bellies, in reloading rounds. This involved hundreds of 30mm cannon shells (the effect of a grenade for each shell) as well as Hellfire missiles. The rate of fire against the thousands of terrorists was tremendous at first, and only at a certain point did the pilots begin to slow down the attacks and carefully choose their targets.


>The Hamas army, it turns out, deliberately made it difficult for the helicopter pilots and drone operators: the investigation revealed that the invading forces were asked in recent briefings to walk slowly into or within the settlements and outposts, and under no circumstances to run, in order to make the pilots think that they were Israelis. This deception worked for a considerable time, until the Apache pilots realized that all restrictions had to be bypassed. Only around 9:00 did some of them begin to spray the terrorists with their cannons on their own, without permission from higher-ups.




https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/b111niukzt#google_vignette



A Survivor Recounts the Horror of the Hamas Attack on Israel’s Supernova Festival

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bYiJiD7EaA




>The first WhatsApp message arrived a little after 9:30 A.M. “I’m begging, you have to help me – everything here is burning, I’m in a ditch. Everything here is burning, people here have been killed.” Nor will I forget where I was when I received that message: on Montefiore Street in Ashkelon, hiding at the corner next to a wall, following yet another volley of missiles. The writer of the message said that he was at a party near Kibbutz Re’im and that they had been attacked by dozens of terrorists. He was hiding in some bushes and would send me the location. He was desperate: The fire ignited by the terrorists was getting closer. He could hear gunshots.

>I messaged the commissioner: “People are contacting me from the party at Re’im. Please try to get them out, there are casualties,” I wrote and added the location. In the background were the unceasing wail of air raid sirens, of rockets slamming into Ashkelon. As I got into my car, I saw smoke billowing above the city and the surrounding communities and reaching the home of my parents, who live in the northern part of it. The roof of a house across from theirs began to burn, a scorched smell spread through the neighborhood. Firefighters and police were still not on the horizon. Bedlam.

>Four minutes later, Shabtai replied. “We have sent in attack helicopters, I’m dispatching forces.” “They’re depending on all of you,” I wrote – and he responded, “Sending in everything we have, quite a few forces on the way at the moment.” I learned later that in those same moments Border Police were already doing battle against terrorists on two kibbutzim, Nir Am and Nahal Oz, a very few against many. In some places, the officers simply could not fend them off.




https://archive.is/TjqLH




>“The rockets started,” Amal says, “and then the guards and the police stopped the music and started instructing people to leave the festival area. And go where? No one knew, just to run away. When people tried to get away, the terrorists were waiting for them in the parking lot and started spraying them with bullets. Everyone who was left starting running in every direction, left and right, wherever they could. But in every direction the terrorists were waiting for us. The terrorists had already entered the festival grounds.

https://archive.is/LrRp5


>The concert was located near the Re’im military base, home to the Israeli army’s Gaza Division. When concert goers began evacuating from the party due to the missile barrage, they got into their cars and headed to the Route 232 highway, where they encountered Hamas fighters en route to attack the base and other settlements. The fighters then began to take concert attendees captive.

>The Israeli Border Police and Air Force responded, causing a large battle to erupt on Route 232 and the adjacent festival site. Concert goers fled and hid in the trees from the Hamas fighters as Israeli helicopters and warplanes bombed the festival area, a survivor of the festival, Noa Kalash, told Time.


https://thecradle.co/articles/nova-festival-survivors-sue-israeli-state-for-army-negligence



>Gaster arrived on site at the festival event at approximately 5:30 a.m. on Saturday, with the party — which had started the night prior — meant to go until approximately 5 p.m. Saturday evening. An offshoot of the Paralello Universo festival brand started in Brazil nearly 20 years ago; the Israel event was called Supernova Sukkot Gathering after the Jewish holiday and was hosting several thousand attendees in a rural location near the Gaza Strip, with a lineup focused on the electronic psytrance genre.


>Everything changed, though, when rockets and missiles launched from the Gaza Strip by Hamas started landing on the site an hour later, part of a widespread attack on Israel.  

>“Around 6:30 in the morning we started hearing explosions,” Gaster says. “We went out of the backstage and we saw a full bombardment everywhere. It was hundreds of rockets and mortars flying from everywhere and explosions all around us.”  

>Gaster says that at this point, festival security advised everyone to get down on the floor and put their hands above their heads for protection. But after 5-10 minutes, Gaster says, “the policemen shouted in the microphones, ‘Okay, get in your cars and go.'”

>“The moment the policemen said ‘go now,’ I ran,” Gaster recalls. “I didn’t wait, because we know it’s a rocket attack. You need to act quick.”  

>Because his car was parked near the stage very close to where he was standing, Gaster and three other men — including Universo Paralello co-founder Juarez Petrillo — were able to immediately get in Gaster’s car and drive out minutes later, after Gaster made sure the artists he works with were also in vehicles fleeing the site.

>Gaster says he was “driving super fast, not stopping for anything, even when missiles are coming down. My instinct told me don’t stop for shelter, just drive… We drove so fast we didn’t even know what was happening.”

>By the time Gaster and the others made it to a villa rented by the production team, located approximately 30 kilometers away from the festival, they had started getting texts and phone calls telling them that minutes after they drove away from the site, Hamas fighters had arrived “with machine guns, with RPGs, with grenades, and just slaughtered whoever they could.”

>He says that these attackers arrived by motorcycles, quads and trucks approximately 20 minutes after missiles started landing.





https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/israel-music-festival-attack-artist-manager-account-massacre-1235436829/
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