A shocking new video shows how quickly a music festival in a kibbutz in southern Israel turned from a typical scene of celebration into a war zone when Hamas terrorists launched an attack on civilians on Saturday.
The video opens with the woman who took the video wandering through the festival with blaring techno music playing in the background as the sun rises. She smiles as she hugs other festival goers.
Witnesses said the gunfire started around 6:00 a.m. The open-air Tribe of Nova music festival will go down in Israeli history as the country’s worst civilian massacre, as 260 people have already been reported killed, with the number expected to rise.
The track suddenly descends into confusion as the crowd seemingly disperses and the music stops. Security guards march through the groups of people pointing in a direction and seemingly yelling at them to leave the area.
The video begins to show hundreds of revelers enjoying pounding techno music as a soft dawn begins in the background
The woman who shot the video shows her face as the crowd waited for another DJ
The woman even posed for a selfie with another concertgoer
In the next clip, there seems to be more confusion as people circle near their cars, as a few can be seen driving away from the concert site.
After 47 seconds, the rattle of gunfire can be heard in the distance. The woman lets out a scream and scrambles into her car, hastily putting on her seat belt.
At some point between that moment and the next cut, the woman is back on foot, wandering through the dusty earth, crying as random gunshots can be heard approaching. The camera pans up and hundreds of other young people are seen running for their lives.
There is a short clip of the woman we saw a short time ago smiling in floods of tears as volleys of gunfire are heard. A quick clip shows revelers applying a makeshift tourniquet to another reveler’s leg as blood oozes from it.
In the next shot, the desperate group is seen huddled under a tarp and crying as the gunfire is now faster and louder.
Finally, an Israeli tank arrives on the scene to provide some cover as the Hamas attack continues. According to many reports, some participants were drunk or high on drugs, adding to their confusion and terror.
At this point, some armed Israeli police arrived on the scene. Armed only with sidearms, they try to lead the youngsters to safety, who scramble as they follow due to the relentless gunfire.
The video ends at that point.
The staggering toll of the festival became clear early Monday, as Israel’s rescue service Zaka said paramedics had recovered at least 260 bodies.
The following shows the music has stopped and confusion reigns as security guards lead people away from the venue
Panic had not yet started with many appearing to ask questions about what was going on
One section of the video shows concertgoers running for their lives as gunfire can be heard in the background
The video shows concertgoers being reduced to crawling in the ground as volleys of gunfire are heard
Festival organizers said they were helping Israeli security forces track down attendees who are still missing. The death toll could rise as crews continue to clear the area.
Israeli communities on either side of the festival site were also attacked, with Hamas gunmen abducting dozens of men, women and children – including the elderly and disabled – and killing scores of others in Saturday’s unprecedented surprise attack.
One witness, Maya Alper, told the Associated Press about the horrors concertgoers faced.
“I can’t even explain the energy they (the militants) had, it was so clear that they didn’t see us as human beings,” she said. “They looked at us with pure, pure hatred.”
Many hid for about six hours until the Israeli army arrived at the festival site.
Alper said she didn’t make a sound until she heard the sound of an Israeli tank rolling by. Alper, himself a tank instructor, said soldiers soon appeared to help her out of the brush.
‘It’s not just war. It’s hell,’ said Alper. “But in that hell, I still feel that somehow we can choose to act out of love, and not just out of fear.”
Eventually, an Israeli tank appeared to provide some cover for the concertgoers
The once smiling concert goer is reduced to tears as reality sets in that a place of joy has now become a war zone
An aerial view of the Supernova festival grounds
Abandoned cars just outside the festival grounds
Fire and smoke rise from an explosion on a Palestinian apartment tower following an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City just hours after the festival attack as the Israeli counter-offensive began
Officials believe that Hamas has deployed a force of about 1,000 fighters to carry out the most devastating attack on Israel in decades, organizing them into specialized units.
An Israeli military spokesman said Israeli troops were targeting Hamas gunmen at half a dozen points around Gaza, more than 48 hours after the attack was launched.
Civilians have already paid a high price for the invasion. About 700 people, including 73 soldiers, have died in Israel, according to Israeli media, citing rescue services – a staggering toll given the scale of its recent conflicts.
The Gaza Ministry of Health said 493 people, including 78 children and 41 women, were killed in the area. Thousands were wounded on both sides.
Palestinian militant groups claimed to be holding more than 130 people kidnapped in Israel and dragged to Gaza. The armed wing of Hamas claimed on its Telegram channel that four of them were killed in Israeli airstrikes. This could not be independently confirmed.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered a “total siege” on Gaza, saying authorities would cut electricity and block the entry of food and fuel.
Gallant said Israel is at war with “human animals,” using the kind of dehumanizing language often used by both sides in times of rising tensions.
How joy turned to terror: Videos recorded by woman at Israeli festival show how young people went from dancing to dodging bullets and helping the wounded as Hamas carried out slaughter
