October 7 > Nova Festival > Testimony of Noa B
We will start at the end, with thanks to the Creator of the Universe that we are alive.
It all began with a party that was a dream. Me, my partner and two friends of his.
We got there, had fun, happy, everything is right with the world.
The sirens started and we aren’t bothered by them, because what is a siren really?
We have been through so much in our lives that I even said to them - "let’s stay here, wait for things to calm down and then we can leave slowly". Our friend said "no way, we are getting out of here now" and we are lucky we listened to him and we had time to escape because 5 minutes after, the terrorists arrived.
My boyfriend was driving at 180km/h and people from the party are jumping at us in the road shouting at us not to drive because they are shooting up ahead. We got out of the car and stopped on the side and see people coming from the direction they told us not to drive in, bullets in their car and their bodies and we helped as much as possible.
We realized that the terrorists are getting closer, so we turned around and drove. I spoke to my sister on the phone, I told her to calm down, everything is okay, there are soldiers here at the intersection thank god. And that is when the nightmare begins.
Terrorists dressed up as soldiers with vests and in our army’s uniform block the road with 4 of their trucks, such that even if we wanted to pass through quickly and let the car catch a few bullets, it’s impossible.
Luckily we were able to stop the car even as they were pelting us with bullets.
Itai, my boyfriend, started going in reverse and Shaked, my friend who was in shock, got out of the car and started running while they shot him in the leg.
"We were in that classroom for 5 hours with no hope of getting out of there alive"
We got to a stage where the car couldn’t really go further, so we got out and started to run.
We are running in a field and can see terrorists on our car, trying to get to us.
We ran until we had no air left to breathe, my legs are paralyzed and Shaked had a bullet in his leg. We were running without knowing how we are managing.
"The people who were with us at the party are no longer alive"
We got to Sha’ar Hanegev school, which is at an intersection where the terrorists are. We climbed 2 fences and hid in the bushes for 2 hours while we are hearing them speak and walk around shooting and getting closer to us.
We saw policemen and asked them to help us please. They said they are coming to us but after 5 minutes they were dead on the floor and we lost all possible hope, we knew we were next.
We broke into the school through a window and got into a classroom. As luck would have it, we were in an art class where there was cloth, towels, taps and bottles. We gave our friend first aid and water.
We were in that classroom for 5 hours with no hope of getting out of there alive and all around us there was shooting and sirens.
My boyfriend’s army officer decided that no matter what, he was going to save us.
After 5 hours, the shooting calmed a little, and he got to us, broke through the two gates that we climbed over and got us out of there while all the while there was still gunfire in the background.
We got to an ambulance and left our friend there and then went home, while the roads were already filled with army and police vehicles.
Without my boyfriend’s officer, God knows when we would have gotten out of there and who would have gotten to us and if our friend would have even survived. Divine providence intervened definitely.
The people who were with us at the party are no longer alive or are missing and the Creator of the Universe wanted us to remain and apart from thanking him we have nothing else we can do.
Noa B.