October 7 > Nova Festival > Testimony of Ben S
It’s October 7th and 30 minutes past midnight. I’m heading down South, the atmosphere is fun, full of happiness, love, and excitement.
3 AM, we get to the party, the excitement is palpable, thousands of happy people are around having fun, dancing, having a great time.
"We start running towards our cars and then hear gunshots"
6:29 AM we hear an odd sound, but we are close to Gaza after all, just a few meters from the border, and see rockets streaking through the sky. That same second, we get a Red Alert where we are, in the party at Reeim.
The music immediately stops, everyone is confused, the police are confused, security is confused. No one knows where to go or what to do.
We start running towards our cars and then hear gunshots, see people landing from the sky using parachutes, see motorcycles racing toward us, hear shots going every which way, it’s a terrible feeling.
Hundreds of people are slaughtered and kidnapped just for being Jewish.
We’re still in the party area, stuck in traffic after being locked in from all sides, thanking God for giving me the strength to collect myself and quickly drive into the center of the party, load people I don’t even know into my car. What does it matter - we’re all in the same nightmare together anyway.
I drive as fast as I possibly can, just so we could reach asphalt and get out of the danger zone.
"We leave the small bomb shelter and run as fast as humanly possible"
8:30 AM, we get to Netivot, I go into the town, dump the car somewhere, because who cares about the car? We just needed to find somewhere safe.
We go into an abandoned building, a tiny little bomb shelter the size of a tuna can, 8 terrified people, panicking.
Outside the building gunshots and screams can be heard, the feeling of terror is indescribable.
9:30 AM we leave the small bomb shelter and run as fast as humanly possible to a more normal bomb shelter. 25 minutes later, the Netivot police arrive and take us to a safe place in the municipality.
Finally, I get home at 22:00 PM, exhausted, no strength left, horribly scarred, having seen horrific scenes, thinking about how much we need to appreciate life.
I wish each and every one of you to be strong, healthy, and that soon the hostages will come back safe and sound amen.
“The forever nation is not afraid of a long road”.
Ben S.