The day the music died

“I’m not a hero, so don’t you dare call me one.” This is how 21-year-old Bar began as she stood before a hall full of Israeli diplomats to painstakingly recount the horrific events she had endured on 7 October.

On the morning of Hamas’ barbaric attack, worlds were shattered, families were destroyed, and festivalgoers helplessly watched as their friends and loved ones were taken hostage, gang-raped, or brutally murdered before their very eyes.

On 6 October, 3,500 ravers gathered to dance at a two-day outdoor music festival near Kibbutz Re’im in southern Israel. On 7 October, mere hours later, the lives they once knew were forever changed as Hamas terrorists descended on what was supposed to be a carefree celebration of life, carrying out acts of unfathomable carnage and unprecedented brutality that are now permanently etched onto Israel’s collective memory.

Fueled by years of indoctrination, incitement to violence, and the glorification of terrorism, the 3,000 terrorists that breached Israel’s border by land, sea, and air did not “just” murder innocent civilians — they burned, raped, tortured, and mutilated their victims first. A search and rescue volunteer who was among the first to arrive at a massacre site stated that none of the bodies he saw that day or on the many days after were ‘merely’ killed; all of them had been subjected to unspeakable acts before being slaughtered.

Tragically, the Nova music festival, attended primarily by young people from all walks of life, proved to be an easy target for the bloodthirsty terrorists. Of the 1,200 murdered and 253 taken hostage that Saturday, 364 of the dead and 40 of the kidnapped were from the festival itself.

As partygoers danced at sunrise, awaiting the main event, alarms warning of incoming rockets began to cut through the heavy bass of trance music, and the joyful dancing quickly morphed into chaos. As people began to disperse, running franticly from the heavy barrage of missiles, attendees and organizers alike were yet to discover that heavily armed terrorists had descended on the venue.

Many tried to escape by car, unaware that the terrorists had created a makeshift roadblock, shooting anyone who approached at point-blank range. Others who tried to distance themselves from the festival grounds on foot, unfortunately, did not get far after taking refuge in the roadside bomb shelters, which are scattered throughout the area due to frequent rocket launches from the nearby Gaza Strip.

These shelters were quickly transformed into scenes out of the most grotesque horror films as Hamas terrorists encircled them, using the innocent civilians inside as their prey in dreadful displays of human target practice.

Bar was one of the many young people who had taken cover in a bomb shelter before they were surrounded and relentlessly attacked. Hours went by with no reprieve. Bar said that the bomb shelter she was in was blasted with at least eight grenades and countless rounds of automatic gunfire.

Forty people sought asylum in that small roadside concrete structure and only ten made it out alive. During the many hours spent in that horror, subject to close-quarters fire while awaiting rescue, the ten survivors watched helplessly as thirty friends and fellow festivalgoers slowly died one after another. As they crouched, clinging on to one another — praying for help, sending out farewell messages to loved ones — no one knew if the next grenade would be their last.

It was in these bomb shelters and other makeshift hiding places, shrouded in darkness and engulfed by fear that Bar and others like her managed to survive Hamas’ hatred-fed rampage. Their lives are forever altered, their bodies and minds permanently scarred, and they remain veiled in these traumatic events.

But it was also on that terrible day, and in the days and weeks to follow, that the survivors have shown us true bravery. Despite it all, despite the deep trauma and the losses they suffered, most of these young adults have managed to find the courage and strength to decide that survival is not enough. They made a conscious decision to try to heal their souls, to thrive, to smile again, and to share their stories and the stories of those who did not live. One day, they will dance again.