At least 260 people were killed after Hamas militants attacked the Universo Paralello Israel Edition music festival.
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This was reported on the evening of October 8 by the volunteer search and rescue group Zaka.
The festival, organized by Tribe Of Nova, took place near Kibbutz Reim, five kilometers from the wall separating Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip. He became one of the first targets of the terrorists who attacked Israel on October 7. The group’s militants seized the concert venue, opened fire on the crowd and took many participants hostage.
The Israel Defense Forces said dozens of people were missing after the Hamas attack. The militants say they are holding more than 100 people in tunnels and other safe spaces in Gaza. It is unclear how many people were taken hostage at the festival.
The location of the festival was kept secret – participants found out where it would be held a few hours before the start of October 6. In a message from organizers, cited by The Washington Post, people who bought tickets were invited to a “powerful outdoor destination” south of Tel Aviv.
Universo Paralello rules stated that participants were not allowed to bring weapons or sharp objects onto the site, and organizers encouraged large groups of people to travel in the same vehicle for the green event. According to various estimates, from one thousand to three to four thousand people gathered at the festival.
When Hamas militants launched a massive rocket attack on Israel in the early hours of October 7, participants at a trance music festival danced throughout the night. When the rockets flew over the festival area, people did not pay attention to it – some did not notice, others were accustomed to rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip. Then the organizers turned off the music and announced that an air raid warning had been announced.
Video footage reviewed by The Washington Post shows people hurriedly leaving, some running, many looking back, and a security officer directing the crowd away from the scenes. In the recordings, people look confused, but do not panic. When the terrorists opened fire, people ran. During the attack, festival participants found themselves in an open area with almost no shelter. Festival-goers said the militants took people hostage by ambushing people in a car and searching the area.
We didn’t know where to run. Nobody knew what to do. [Побачивши вдалині бойовиків] I took the car keys of my friend, who was very drunk, put more people in the car and drove away like crazy. Many of those who remained were kidnapped or killed, 27-year-old festival participant Milet Ben-Haim told The Washington Post.
According to the woman, after some time they left the car and ran across the fields.
In all directions where we fled, more and more people were shooting at us. We ran for two hours trying to escape. We crawled through the bushes. “In the end, I realized that I couldn’t run away anymore,” Ben-Haim said.
Together with their friends and an unfamiliar man, they disappeared into the bushes.
We were silent and tried to call the police. The police said they couldn’t help us because too many people had been kidnapped,” Ben-Haim says.
When her phone’s battery was nearly dead after seven hours, the woman was picked up by a local resident who had been driving around the area looking for people.
We heard shots. The road was blocked by cars with corpses on their roofs. We couldn’t get out,” says 31-year-old Gal Raz in a conversation with WP.
According to him, he and his friends tried to get out by car, but were quickly ambushed.
There were seven or eight terrorists, they started shooting at us from the car,” he said.
After driving a few hundred meters, Gal Raz and his friends abandoned the car and began to hide. As a result, they were discovered by the Israeli military.
Festival-goer Esther said that several militants fired at her car as she tried to leave the festival, after which she and her friend were rescued by the driver of an SUV. When they tried to leave the festival site, the gunmen killed the driver. Both girls pretended to be dead until the Israeli military arrived on the scene.
Many Israelis have military experience, and some festival participants have killed several terrorists. The owner of the production company Nova Tribe, which organized the festival, shot and killed two of the attackers, taking their weapons. The promoter estimates that 600-700 people were missing at the festival.
Journalists from The Washington Post named several people who were apparently kidnapped at the festival. Judging by videos published on Palestinian social networks, 25-year-old Noa Argamani is being held hostage. The gunmen grabbed her while she was hiding in the bushes with her friend Avinatan Or. In one recording, Argamani screams as she is taken away on a motorcycle while her friend, his hands tied, is pushed by several people. Another recording shows the place where Argamani is being held hostage.
Tali Atias told WP that her 23-year-old daughter Doreen could likely be held hostage. The last time Doreen contacted her mother was shortly after the Hamas attack: she said that she was seeking shelter because of the attack. Tali Atias said she wrote and called her daughter’s friends, but no one knows what happened to her.
A video was published online of terrorists carrying 22-year-old German citizen Shani Luk in the back of a pickup truck. In the recording, the girl, whom relatives recognized by tattoos and long dreadlocks, lies without signs of life. One of the militants holds the girl by the hair, the other raises a pistol and shouts “Allahu Akbar!”
Universo Paralello is a festival with more than 20 years of history, first organized in Israel. At first they did not want to conduct it near the border of the Gaza Strip.
Source: Racurs
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.