Arbel Ashkenazy attended the Supernova competition on Friday evening, a desert rave that coincided with the beginning of the week-long Jewish vacation of Sukkot, which celebrates the autumn harvest and commemorates the Outdated Testomony story of the Jewish folks wandering within the desert for 40 years after escaping slavery in Egypt. The competition featured Brazilian psy trance music and targeted on free love, spirit, and environmental preservation.
However within the early hours of Saturday morning, Hamas militants paraglided into the out of doors competition and commenced taking pictures indiscriminately at partygoers. On the similar time, Hamas additionally launched hundreds of rockets from Gaza into Israel and despatched fighters to different border cities within the south of the nation. Hamas says that they’ve taken over 100 Israeli hostages up to now. Over 700 hundred Israelis had been killed, with the dying toll hovering over 1,200 on each side on Monday.
The Supernova competition had one of many highest concentrations of casualties. Greater than 260 our bodies have been discovered from the competition up to now.
Under is Arbel’s account of the occasions that unfolded on the competition.
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We arrived on the get together Friday evening, and at round 6 within the morning on Saturday they stopped the music and sirens began to sound. We heard the sound of rockets over our heads in big numbers. Throughout this time we werent that harassed, we simply stayed put on the get together and lied down on the ground. Slowly, slowly we began to see many individuals go away and head to their automobiles even if we had been supposed to remain.
Throughout this time, I began on the lookout for my buddy Eden. Despite the fact that we didnt arrive on the get together collectively, she is my greatest buddy so I instantly began to search for her. Me and my buddy discovered her and we left and began heading for the route of the automobiles at round 7 a.m. At this level, we had been getting extra harassed however we nonetheless didnt completely perceive precisely what was occurring. There additionally wasnt any reporting on it within the information or web but.
We began to depart the get together and get into autos, however as a result of everybody was leaving on the similar timethere had been 3,000 folks on the partythere was a loopy quantity of site visitors on the street. We ended up making a left flip and we instantly noticed all these automobiles with shattered home windows from the gunshots. We heard lots of people screaming that they wanted an ambulance. We didnt know what to take action we stayed in our autos.
By that point, I had misplaced contact with my buddy Eden, as a result of she was in a distinct automobile and hid there when the gunshots began. Then, we heard any person screaming, get out of the automobiles, so we left the automobiles, and simply began operating. There was an space with an empty discipline because it was a nature get together. It was very naked with no timber or something and we began to run towards it. At that very same time, we additionally began to listen to gunshots from each route and voices shouting Allahu Akbar. Whereas we had been operating in that open discipline, we might see within the distance a few of the Hamas folks. They had been carrying all black with black masks and had these big weapons.
For a while, we hid in these bushes earlier than we began to run additional east. However as we began operating east, we noticed different folks from the get together operating towards us and so they instructed us, run to the opposite facet as a result of there are terrorists on this facet. They’d simply circled throughout us from each route. We stored operating when all of the sudden I noticed a personan angelthat had an enormous white van. He picked up a bunch of individuals into the van and me and my buddy climbed onto the van.
It was a miracle that though he was driving on this open discipline, and there have been gunshots in all places, we had been in a position to get to a police station within the metropolis of Netivot at round 10:30 a.m. We stayed there till the night till issues calmed down, should you may even say calmed down, as a result of it didnt actually settle down. In our space, they captured a few of the perpetrators.
I heard that my buddy Eden, who had hidden within the automobile through the gunshots, was on the cellphone the complete time together with her mom for 4 hours straight. In some unspecified time in the future she made it to the bushes as nicely, however then all of the sudden, 4 hours into the cellphone name, they heard her say on the cellphone, they caught me. You’ll be able to hear for a second within the recording the voices of the Hamas folks after which the cellphone disconnects. Now we have been on the lookout for her however haven’t heard from her since.
The toughest half is to see all of the our bodies of younger children our age with blood laid out on the ground. We had been in an setting of pure chaos. I used to be saved by a miracle and was left in peace, however lots of my buddies together with my greatest buddy Eden are nonetheless there and I simply need everybody to return safely and in peace. I simply need this horrible story to finish as a result of it doesnt really feel actual. Its not regular, in any nation, anyplace, no one ought to must undergo one thing like this. It didnt make any sense. We ran like loopy folks in the course of an open discipline whereas they had been taking pictures at us, there was no place to run, no place to cover. Im grateful to be alive however I simply need Eden again.
