Tragic Israeli Music Festival: 260 Lives Lost in Bullet Hail

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09th Oct, 2023. 09:20 pm
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Supernova festival in Israel turns into a tragedy as Palestinian militants launch a surprise attack.

Over 260 bodies found at the festival site, with many injured and missing.
Survivors describe a horrifying ordeal of gunfire, hiding, and escape.

Music enthusiasts had eagerly anticipated the Supernova festival for weeks, which took place in the southern Israeli desert to coincide with the Jewish festival of Sukkot.

“The time has come when the whole family is about to get together again,” organizers wrote on social media before it began. “And what fun it is going to be!”

A short time later, their social media feeds are inundated with distressed individuals attempting to locate their loved ones.

This comes after Palestinian militants launched a surprise attack on Israel, infiltrating the Supernova festival and initiating gunfire. According to the Zaka rescue agency, over 260 bodies have been discovered at the festival location.

Ortel, a festival attendee, noted that the initial indication of trouble arose when a dawn siren sounded, alerting them to incoming rockets. Witnesses described how the rockets were promptly followed by gunfire.

“They turned off the electricity and suddenly out of nowhere they [militants] come inside with gunfire, opening fire in every direction,” she told Israel’s Channel 12.

“Fifty terrorists arrived in vans, dressed in military uniforms,” she said.

“They fired bursts, and we reached a point where everyone stopped their vehicles and started running. I went into a tree, a bush like this, and they just started spraying people. I saw masses of wounded people thrown around.”

Gilad Karplus, employed as a masseuse at the festival, informed the BBC that he witnessed individuals being struck by bullets. He and his friends successfully fled into the fields in a vehicle to escape the danger.

“Then they [the militants] started firing sniper rifles on us from different places and also heavy artillery.”

Having previously served in the Israel Defense Forces, Mr. Karplus sustained injuries when he came under fire from motorcycles. However, he and his friends were able to evade their assailants and sought refuge in a nearby building.

“We heard them [the gunmen] going from door to door, and in a few hours they could have found us, but they didn’t know we were there.”

Subsequently, Israeli soldiers and police arrived at the scene, and Mr. Karplus received medical attention at a hospital.

The festival grounds, featuring three stages, a camping area, and a bar and food section, were situated in the Negev desert near Kibbutz Re’im.

This location was near the Gaza Strip, where Hamas fighters infiltrated towns and villages at dawn, taking numerous people hostage.

Esther Borochov recounted to Reuters that as she was driving away, her vehicle was forcefully struck by another vehicle.

A young man driving the second car urged her to get inside. She complied, but tragically, the man was shot at close range. Esther feigned being lifeless until she was eventually rescued by the Israeli military.

“I couldn’t move my legs,” she told Reuters from the hospital. “Soldiers came and took us away to the bushes.”

Many festivalgoers – like Ortel – hid in nearby bushes and fruit orchards for hours, hoping for the military to arrive and rescue them.

“I put the phone on mute mode, and then I started crawling through an orange grove,” Ortel said. “Live fire was whistling above me.”

Gili Yoskovich told the BBC how she hid in a pomelo orchard. “They were going tree by tree and shooting. I saw people were dying all around. I was very quiet. I didn’t cry, I didn’t do anything.”

Finally, after a three-hour wait, she discerned the voices of Israeli soldiers and decided to sprint towards safety.

Another witness told Channel 12 it was “four hours of a horror movie… We ran like crazy, it was just crazy.”

“It was a massacre,” said Yaniv, an emergency medic who was called out to the party. He told public broadcaster Kan News: “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. It was a planned ambush. As people came out of the emergency exits, squads of terrorists were waiting for them there and just started picking them off.

“There were 3,000 people at the event, so they probably knew it. They had intelligence information.”

Desperate friends and family members of missing individuals are fervently seeking to locate their loved ones.

Among the individuals unaccounted for is Shani Louk, a German tourist, whose mother suspects she may have been abducted.

Additionally, 25-year-old Noa Argamani is believed to have been taken captive during the festival, according to statements from her family and friends.

Amit Parpara, a friend of Noa, communicated with her through messages while she was in hiding, as he recounted to the BBC.

“Around 8:30 was the last message that I got from her,” he said. Amit later saw a video on social media appearing to show her being taken captive. “[It shows] her on a motorcycle, being taken away from her boyfriend. You can see her terror going into the Gaza Strip.”

The parents of 23-year-old American-Israeli Hersh Golberg-Polin are in search of their son, who attended the festival to celebrate his birthday.

They informed the Jerusalem Post that they received two brief messages from him on Saturday morning, which read: “I love you” and “I’m sorry.”

As per the most recent reports in local media, the ongoing conflict has resulted in the deaths of at least 700 Israelis.

The confrontations between the Israeli military and Palestinian militants persist, and Israel has initiated a series of airstrikes on Gaza.

According to Palestinian officials, these airstrikes have led to the loss of life for at least 493 people.

Tragic Israeli Music Festival: 260 Lives Lost in Bullet Hail

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