Re'im music festival massacre | |
---|---|
Part of the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel | |
Location | Eshkol Regional Council, Israel |
Coordinates | 31°23′52″N34°28′18″E / 31.39778°N 34.47167°E |
Date | 7 October 2023 Starting c. 7 am (UTC+3) |
Target | Civilians |
Attack type | Mass shooting, hostage-taking |
Weapons | Firearms including AK-type assault rifles, RPGs, hand grenades [1] |
Deaths | 364 |
Victims | 40 captured [2] |
Perpetrator | Hamas-led |
On 7 October 2023, the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas initiated a surprise attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip. As part of the attack, 364 civilians were killed and many more wounded by Hamas at the Supernova Sukkot Gathering, an open-air music festival during the Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret near kibbutz Re'im. At least 40 hostages were also taken. [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] This mass killing had the largest number of casualties out of a number of massacres targeting Israeli civilians in villages adjacent to the Gaza Strip, that occurred as part of the 7 October attack, alongside those at the moshavim of Netiv HaAsara, Be'eri, Kfar Aza, Nir Oz and Holit. [9]
At 6:30 am around sunrise, rockets were noticed in the sky. [1] [ failed verification ] Around 7:00 am, a siren warned of an incoming rocket attack, prompting festivalgoers to flee. [10] Subsequently, armed militants, dressed in military attire and using motorcycles, trucks and powered paragliders, surrounded the festival grounds and indiscriminately fired on individuals attempting to escape. Attendees seeking refuge in nearby locations, such as bomb shelters, bushes, and orchards, were killed while in hiding. Those who reached the road and parking were trapped in a traffic jam as militants fired at vehicles. The militants executed some wounded individuals at point-blank range as they crouched on the ground. [11] [12]
The details of the whereabouts and condition of the hostages are not publicly known. [6] [7] [13] The massacre at the festival was the largest terror attack in Israel's history, [1] [14] [12] and the worst Israeli civilian massacre ever. [15]
Supernova Sukkot Gathering was a weekend-long outdoor trance music festival that began on 6 October 2023 [16] [17] and was produced by an organizer called Nova [18] [8] (also referred to as Tribe of Nova). [19] It was the Israeli edition (pre-festival event) of Universo Paralello, a psychedelic trance festival started 23 years prior in Bahia, Brazil. [17] It took place in the western Negev desert, [8] approximately 5 km (3.1 mi) from the Gaza–Israel barrier, near kibbutz Re'im. [6] [18] The line-up included artists well-known in the psychedelic trance scene, such as Astral Projection and Man with No Name. [17] The organizers switched to the site only two days before, after the original location in southern Israel did not work out. [20] Scheduled to coincide with Jewish holidays: the final day of Sukkot (6 October) and Simchat Torah (7 October), [6] the rave was billed as a celebration of "friends, love and infinite freedom". [18] The festival site had three stages, a camping zone, and an area with a bar and food. [6] Attendees described the crowd as mostly consisting of Israelis of ages 20–40 from across the country. [8] Attendance was reported to be 3,500 but figures vary. [21] [lower-alpha 1] Security guards and police were present at the festival. [8] [20]
The festival was one of the first targets of Hamas's surprise attack against Israel in the early morning hours of 7 October 2023. [18] Israeli security services investigations have found it unlikely that Hamas had advanced knowledge of the festival, citing, among other evidence, that the festival had been planned to run until 6 October, and was only recently extended to 7 October. [22] One attendee stated that after cutting the electricity, a group of approximately 50 Hamas gunmen arrived in vans and sprayed gunfire in all directions. [6] Some of the Hamas gunmen who attacked the festival infiltrated Israel via motorised paragliders, [23] arriving around 6:30 am. [23] [24]
As festival attendees fled in panic, jeeps filled with gunmen began firing at the escaping cars. [18] [8] Gunmen also blockaded roads. [18] The open terrain left few places to hide. [18] Many attendees who hid in the trees were murdered as militants methodically shot them. [6] Others who hid in bushes and orchards managed to survive. [6] Many of the attendees attempted to call for help through phone calls and WhatsApp messages however it took hours for emergency responders and military to reach the festival grounds. [25]
Some participants attempted to shelter inside public missile shelters, such as Aner Shapira and Hersch Goldberg-Polin who were credited with helping protect their shelter. Shapira was killed while attempting to throw out multiple grenades that were thrown into the shelter, and Goldberg-Polin was seriously wounded before the shelter was overrun by Hamas militants. [26] Other attendees were able to hide behind an abandoned tank, some entered the tank and were reportedly able to load and fire the tanks machine gun after instructions from a friend who was serving in the IDF. They were credited with helping fight off some of the militants before emergency and military personnel arrived. [27]
The massacre took place amid a rocket siren, signalling a barrage of rockets fired into Israel. [8] Independently verified drone footage from the site showed dozens of scorched, burnt cars and skid marks. [28] Footage of the attack, posted on a Telegram channel, included graphic depictions of murder and hostage-taking. [28] [21] Upon their return to Gaza City, Hamas members paraded a body of a woman in the back of a pickup truck – Shani Louk, a 22-year-old German-Israeli national. In one of the first viral videos to emerge from the attack, her body is shown clad only in underwear, while the gunmen are exclaiming "Allahu Akbar"; they were surrounded by cheering residents, some of whom spat on the body. [29] [30] [31]
The Hamas militants kidnapped an initially unknown number of participants, with later reports defining the number of kidnapped people to be at 40; videos on social media showed them being seized. [32] The abducted concertgoers were taken to the Gaza Strip, [24] where some were filmed in Hamas propaganda videos. [33] Relatives and friends of the missing searched for information about the missing. [24] [34] Those abducted by Hamas militants included a British man, [35] and 25-year-old Israeli woman Noa Argamani. [36] Three dual Brazilian-Israeli nationals who had attended the festival were also missing. [37]
During the massacre, according to survivor and emergency responder testimony, Hamas militants raped women attendees. According to survivor testimony released by Lahav 433, a young woman was gang raped by Hamas militants before being murdered. The testimony was published in Hebrew- and English-language Israeli news outlets. According to Haaretz police reporter Josh Breiner, ZAKA emergency response personnel found naked women with injuries and their genitals mutilated, with others found bound and naked below their waists. [38] [39] The Israel Defense Forces have not verified the claims. [40] [41]
Photographs from the aftermath of the attack show dozens of bodies on the festival grounds, including a badly-burned body bound by cable ties. [42] ZAKA, Israel's volunteer community emergency response group, reported retrieving at least 260 bodies from the party grounds. [18] [43] [44] The death toll was expected to rise, as other paramedic organisations also responded to the scene. [44] The final figure communicated by police on 17 November was 364 dead, including 17 police officers, and 40 abducted. [45] [2]
One of those killed was a British man serving in the Israeli military. [35] Lior Asulin, a retired football striker who had played for Hapoel Tel Aviv Football Club, was also among those killed in the massacre. [46] Journalists Shai Regev and Ayelet Arnin, who worked for the newspaper Maariv and public broadcaster Kan respectively, were also killed in the attack. [47] [48] The event's organisers, twins Osher Vaknin and Michael Vaknin, were killed in the attack as well. [49] [50]
Danielle Waldman, the youngest daughter of Israeli billionaire businessman Eyal Waldman, and her boyfriend Noam Shai were killed during the massacre. When Waldman received word that Danielle was missing, he flew back to Israel from Indonesia and tracked her location via her Apple Watch. Her body was found on 9 October. [51]
As of 14 October 2023, German authorities were aware of eight of its nationals having been taken as hostage in the overall events of 7 October 2023, including the case of Shani Louk, [52] which gained great public interest. [53] [54] They opened a criminal probe against unknown Hamas members to investigate "belonging to a foreign terrorist group, hostage-taking and murder". [55] [53] [56] [57]
According to reports published on 17 November, the police concluded based on interrogations and their own investigations that Hamas did not know about the festival beforehand but came across it by accident and decided to attack it. [45] Israeli security authorities suggested that Hamas likely lacked advance knowledge of the festival. Senior officials estimated that Hamas may have become aware of the event through drones or individuals parachuting, and subsequently directed their forces to the location using their communication system. [45] According to Haaretz journalist Josh Breiner, a police source said that a police investigation indicated an IDF helicopter which had fired on Hamas militants "apparently also hit some festival participants". [58] [59] The Israeli police denied the Haaretz report [60] and said they found no evidence of civilian harm resulting from the aerial activities at that location. [60] [58]
According to Haaretz, Israel's domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet and IDF military commanders discussed a possible threat to the festival just hours before the attack. However, no warnings were given to the festival's organisers. [61] [62]
Hamas initially denied the occurrence of the massacre and the killing of civilians. [63] It later claimed that forces under Hamas never targeted civilians but that the massacre may have been carried out by independent groups of Gazan civilians after Hamas had defeated the Israeli forces in the region. [64] In response to this massacre, as well as other massacres and attacks in what Hamas called "Operation Al-Aqsa Flood", Israel formally declared war on Hamas and initiated its counteroffensive, named "Operation Swords of Iron".
On 19 November, the Palestinian Authority (PA) denied that Hamas conducted the massacre in a statement sent to foreign ministries worldwide and to the United Nations. The PA claimed that Israeli helicopters bombed civilians after the Hannibal Directive was activated, though the directive is claimed by Israel to have been canceled in 2016. [65] [66] The PA then withdrew the claim and told the U.S. National Security Council that this was not its official position. [67]
Family members of the victims of the festival and the Psyduck festival together formed the Party Youth Forum in order to demand the establishment of a third-party investigation committee, which would potentially identify any negligence leading up to the 7 October attacks. [68] On 1 January 2024, 42 survivors of the massacre filed a lawsuit seeking 200 million NIS in damages from the IDF, Shin Bet and the Israel Police. [69] [70]
Shortly after the attack spaces were created to allow survivors and victims families to reflect and heal from the attack, with a variety of treatments provided to help them process the mental trauma. [71] Items recovered from the festivals grounds that were not claimed or identified, were brought to another similar event in the Sdot Yam kibbutz. [72] [73]
In late January 2024, it was reported that the site has been opened to tourists, family and friends of victims to learn about the attack, the victims, and survivors and pay tribute to them. [74] That same month, close to Rosh Hashanah the families of victims planted trees inside the area of the festival to commemorate the deceased victims. [75]
During a State Audit Commission on the treatment of survivors of the 7 October attacks at the Knesset in April 2024, a survivor spoke out about the psychological damage the attack had caused. He indicated that many survivors were forcibly hospitalized due to psychological state, could not get out of bed, and that there had been some 50 suicides by survivors in between October 2023 and April 2024. The Israeli Ministry of Health has reported that they cannot confirm the claim of suicides made by the survivor. [76]
Bituah Leumi, the national social security agency of Israel, formally recognised the trauma and damage suffered by the survivors of the massacre. Survivors can submit claims for recognition as victims of work-related injuries and as casualties of hostile actions. Individuals are eligible for various privileges, including financial aid, medical and psychological assistance, legal representation, and compensation for any property losses or damages. [77] [78]
On October 9, two days after the massacre, Irish rock band U2 paid tribute to the victims during a Las Vegas concert by performing "Pride (In the Name of Love)" with modified lyrics to reference the massacre. [79] [80] Five Israeli DJs, including Skazi, performed a set during a memorial on 28 November 2023, at the site of the festival. [81] Film makers Reinhardt Beetz, Duki Dror and Danna Stern made a documentary titled Supernova: The Music Festival Massacre. [82] [83]
On December 6, a documentary titled #Nova was aired on Yes Docu, recreating the events of the massacre. The documentary uses videos taken on site, phone call recordings and WhatsApp conversations. [84] [85] As a precedent, Yes announced that it would allow any television channel and broadcaster to show the film for free, and also uploaded the full film to its official YouTube channel. [86] [87] [88]
Supernova: Music Festival Massacre is another documentary about the massacre. Created by Yossi Bloch, Noam Pinchas, and Duki Dror, the documentary narrates the experiences of survivors through interviews and real-time video footage. It also incorporates a limited amount of video captured by the perpetrators. It has been acquired by broadcasters in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, and other countries worldwide. [89] [90]
In December 2023, activists, including producers of the festival, organised the "6:29" installation at Expo Tel Aviv, which recreates the massacre site in detail. It was one of the first physical memorials of the 7 October attacks. The exhibit, named for the minute the music at the festival ceased in response to sirens of incoming rockets, included a reconstructed dance floor, incinerated cars, bullet-ridden portable toilets, piles of personal items, and tributes to the victims. [91] [92]
On 5 February 2024, the 66th Annual Grammy Awards paid tribute to the victims of the massacre. Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. led the tribute, delivering eulogies, while a string quartet composed of musicians from Israeli, Palestinian and Arab backgrounds provided musical accompaniment. [93]
In March 2024, it was reported that the BBC will co-produce and broadcast a documentary titled "We Will Dance Again" about the festival massacre. [94]
Hamas, an acronym of its official name, Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya, is a Palestinian Sunni Islamist political and military movement governing the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip since 2007.
On 1 June 2001, a Hamas-affiliated Islamist terrorist blew himself up outside the Dolphinarium discotheque on the beachfront in Tel Aviv, Israel, killing 21 Israelis, 16 of whom were teenagers. The majority of the victims were Israeli teenage girls whose families had recently immigrated from the former Soviet Union.
Re'im is a secular kibbutz in southern Israel, and one of the Gaza vicinity villages. Located at the confluence of Besor Stream and Gerar Stream in the north-western Negev desert, it falls under the jurisdiction of Eshkol Regional Council. In 2022, it had a population of 422.
Danna Stern is the former head of Yes Studios.
On 7 October 2023, Hamas and several other Palestinian militant groups launched coordinated armed incursions from the Gaza Strip into the Gaza envelope of southern Israel, the first invasion of Israeli territory since the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups named the attacks Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, while in Israel they are referred to as Black Saturday or the Simchat Torah Massacre, and internationally as the 7 October attack. The attacks consequently started the ongoing Israel–Hamas war.
An armed conflict between Israel and Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups has been taking place chiefly in and around the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023. It began when Hamas launched a surprise attack on southern Israel from the Gaza Strip. After clearing the militants from its territory, the Israeli military embarked on an extensive aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip followed by a large-scale ground invasion beginning on 27 October. Clashes have also occurred in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and with Hezbollah along the Israel–Lebanon–Golan Heights border. The fifth war of the Gaza–Israel conflict since 2008, it is part of the broader Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and the most significant military engagement in the region since the Yom Kippur War 50 years earlier.
The Netiv HaAsara massacre occurred during the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023. Thirty-five Hamas militants, some via paragliders and most via car, attacked Netiv HaAsara, an Israeli moshav close to the border fence. The militants killed at least 20 people, including in some cases members of the same family. Before the massacre, the moshav was home to approximately 900 residents.
On 7 October 2023, in the opening attacks of the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Hamas militants carried out a massacre at Be'eri, an Israeli kibbutz near the Gaza Strip.
On 7 October 2023, around 70 Hamas militants attacked Kfar Aza, a kibbutz about 3 kilometers (1.9 mi) from the border with the Gaza Strip, massacring residents and abducting several hostages.
On 7 October 2023, during the Re'im music festival massacre, Shani Nicole Louk, a 22-year-old German-Israeli tattoo artist and influencer, was killed. Shortly after the attack, a video circulated showing her body paraded through the streets of Gaza by Hamas militants in the back of a pickup truck. Described by security experts and commentators as Hamas's social media propaganda, it became one of the first viral videos of the Israel–Hamas war. The globally-seen images turned into a visual emblem of militants' conduct toward civilians in the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel.
On 7 October 2023, 25-year-old Israeli woman Noa Argamani was abducted by Hamas during the Re'im music festival massacre, part of the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. In one of the first Hamas videos released of the massacre, she was seen being abducted by motorcycle as she yells, "Don't kill me!" Her arms are outstretched toward her boyfriend Avinatan Or, who was also being kidnapped. The footage of her kidnapping, became a symbol of the hostage crisis and has led to Argamani being described as "the face of the Nova music festival hostages". Despite other hostages being released during a ceasefire in November 2023, Argamani remained captive.
Bearing Witness to the October 7th Massacre is a compilation by the IDF Spokesperson's Unit of raw footage from the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. The film includes footage captured from body cameras worn by Hamas militants on October 7, and contains scenes of extreme violence recorded during and after the incursion.
On 7 October 2023, 23-year-old American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin was wounded and abducted by Hamas from the Re'im music festival massacre, part of the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.
Aner Elyakim Shapira was an Israeli who was killed during the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. During the Re'im music festival massacre, while taking cover in a shelter, Shapira threw back at Hamas militants 7 explosive grenades they had originally thrown into the shelter. Ultimately, he saved the lives of at least 7 people who survived the massacre. For his actions, he was called a "hero" by Israeli and international media.
During the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Israeli women and girls were reportedly subject to sexual violence, including rape and sexual assault by Hamas or other Gazan militants. The militants involved in the attack are accused of having committed acts of gender-based violence, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Hamas has denied that its fighters committed rape and assault against women. During the 7 October attacks by Hamas on Israeli communities, Israeli women and girls were reportedly raped, assaulted, and mutilated by Hamas militants, an allegation that Hamas denies. Israeli police said dozens of women and some men were raped. The New York Times and the BBC reported that "videos of naked and bloodied women filmed by Hamas on the day of the attack, and photographs of bodies taken at the sites afterwards, suggest that women were sexually targeted by their attackers".
Allegations have been made that the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel constituted a genocidal massacre against Israelis. In the course of the assault, Palestinian militants attacked communities, a music festival, and military bases in the region of southern Israel known as the Gaza envelope. The attack, which has been described as a "rampage of atrocities", resulted in the deaths of 1,163 people, two thirds of whom were civilians.
Psyduck was a small trance music festival that took place in the open fields between kibbutz Nir Oz and kibbutz Nirim, about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) from the border of Gaza. The rave hosted about 100 participants. On 7 October 2023 morning, as part of the surprise attack on Israel, the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas attacked the Psyduck festival, killing 17 Israeli partygoers.
On 7 October 2023, 21-year-old French-Israeli woman Mia Schem was abducted by Hamas during the Re'im music festival massacre, part of the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. Her abduction, a video of her in captivity in Gaza, and subsequent release on 30 November garnered international media attention, and she became a face of the hostage crisis during the Israel–Hamas war.
Screams Before Silence is a documentary film led by American businesswoman Sheryl Sandberg, that explores the sexual violence by Hamas during the Hamas-led attack on Israel, on 7 October 2023, including events at the massacre at the Nova Festival and abductions to the Gaza Strip. The film was released on YouTube on 2 May 2024, Sandberg has described this film as the most important work of her life.
In videos from 7 October, the body of a young woman is lying face down in the back of a pickup truck, stripped to her underwear, one leg bent at an unnatural angle. One of the men sitting next to her pulls her long hair as armed men around him shout praises to God. Footage of the lifeless corpse of Shani Louk, a 22-year-old Israeli-German national, paraded around the streets of Gaza was some of the first to surface on 7 October, ...
Hamas operatives are seen celebrating and cheering in the pickup truck in which they had placed Louk's body, which was contorted in an unnatural angle, while Palestinians surrounding the truck shouted, "Allahu Akbar": [God is greatest in Arabic]. Two of the men spit on her.
One of the first viral videos of the conflict on Saturday appeared to show Shani being paraded on the back of a truck by Hamas militants ...
Das Video der schwer verletzten Shani Louk erlangte im Internet große Bekanntheit. (transl. The video of seriously injured Shani Louk became widely known on the Internet.)
According to a police source, the investigation also indicates that an IDF combat helicopter that arrived to the scene and fired at terrorists there apparently also hit some festival participants.