A request that this article title be changed to Supernova music festival massacreisunder discussion. Please do not move this article until the discussion is closed.
|
On 7 October 2023, as part of their initial incursion during the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, Hamas militants who had entered Israel from the Gaza Strip perpetrated a massacre of civilians at a Sukkot music festival near the Re'im secular kibbutz.[3][4] At least 260 were killed, with many others wounded. The gunmen took hostages; their locations and condition are not publicly known.[3][5][6]
Re'im music festival massacre | |
---|---|
Part of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war | |
Site of the attack in Israel
| |
Location | Re'im, Israel |
Coordinates | 31°23′52″N 34°28′18″E / 31.39778°N 34.47167°E / 31.39778; 34.47167 |
Date | 7 October 2023; 8 months ago (2023-10-07) c. 7:00 a.m. (UTC+3) |
Target | Civilians |
Attack type | Mass shooting |
Deaths | 260+[1][2] |
Perpetrator | ![]() |
The Supernova Sukkot Gathering was a weekend-long outdoor trance music festival that began on 6 October 2023.[7][8] It took place in the western Negev desert,[6] approximately 5 km (3.1 mi) from the Gaza–Israel barrier, near the Re'im kibbutz.[3][9] Produced by an organizer called Nova,[9][6][a] the gathering was the Israeli edition of Universo Paralello, a psy trance festival that originated in Bahia, Brazil.[7] The organizers switched to the site only two days before, after the original location in southern Israel did not work out.[11] Scheduled to coincide with the Jewish festival of Simchat Torah,[3] the rave was billed as a celebration of "friends, love and infinite freedom".[9] The festival site had three stages, a camping zone, and an area with a bar and food.[3] Attendees described the crowd as mostly consisting of Israelis ages 20 to 40, from across the country.[6] Attendance was reported to be 3,500, but figures vary.[12][b] Security guards and police were present at the festival.[6][11]
The musical festival was one of the first targets of the surprise attack against Israel, launched by Hamas in the early morning hours of 7 October 2023.[9] It is not known whether Hamas knew beforehand that the festival was taking place there or whether they heard the music and came across it by chance, according to the BBC.[13] One attendee stated that after cutting the electricity, a group of approximately 50 Hamas gunmen arrived in vans and sprayed gunfire in all directions.[3] Some of the Hamas gunmen who attacked the festival infiltrated Israel via motorized paragliders,[14] arriving around 6:30 a.m., around sunrise.[14][15]
As festival attendees fled in panic, jeeps filled with gunmen began firing at the escaping cars.[9][6] Gunmen also blockaded roads.[9] The wide open terrain left few places to hide.[9] Many attendees who hid in the trees were murdered as militants methodically shot them.[3] Others who hid in bushes and orchards managed to survive.[3] The massacre took place amid a rocket siren, signaling a barrage of rockets fired into Israel.[6] Independently verified drone footage of the site showed dozens of scorched, burnt cars and skid marks.[16] Footage of the attack, posted on a Telegram channel, included graphic depictions of murder and hostage-taking.[16][12]
The Hamas militants captured an unknown number of participants; videos on social media showed them being seized.[17] The abducted concertgoers were taken to Gaza,[15] where some were filmed in Hamas propaganda videos.[18] Relatives and friends of the missing searched for information about the missing.[15][19] Those apparently abducted by Hamas included a British man[20] and a Beijing-born, 25-year-old Chinese-Israeli woman.[21][22] Three dual Brazilian-Israeli nationals who had attended the festival were also missing.[21]
Hamas paraded an injured woman[23] in the back of a pickup truck – Shani Nicole Louk, a 22-year-old tattoo artist and German-Israeli dual citizen; a video, which became viral,[24][25] shows her in a motionless state, clad only in her underwear, while the gunmen are chanting "Allahu Akbar", one draping his leg over her waist, another grabbing her hair, and a man in the crowd spitting on her.[26][17][27][9]
Footage from the attack raised concerns about sexual abuse of women.[26] A few sources claimed that some of the women were raped and then killed.[28] However, the Los Angeles Times, which had published a column conveying such claims, retracted it, saying that "An earlier version of this column mentioned rape in the attacks, but such reports have not been substantiated."[29]
Photographs from the aftermath of the attack show dozens of bodies at the festival grounds, including a badly burned body bound by cable ties.[30] ZAKA, Israel's volunteer community emergency response group, reported retrieving at least 260 bodies from the party grounds.[9][31][32] The death toll is expected to rise, as other paramedic organizations also responded to the scene.[32]
One of those killed was a British man serving in the Israeli military.[20] Lior Asulin, a retired football striker who had played for Hapoel Tel Aviv Football Club, was also among those killed in the massacre.[33] The event's organizer, Osher Vaknin, was killed in the attack, while his twin and co-organizer Michael went missing.[34]
German authorities believed that multiple German-Israeli dual citizens were victims of the overall events of 7 October, and opened a criminal probe against unknown Hamas members, to investigate "belonging to a foreign terrorist group, hostage-taking and murder".[35][36][37] While the persons involved or their number were specified by the officials, the German public-service broadcaster ZDF claimed knowledge of five instances of abduction,[c] referencing also the case of Shani Louk, which had gained public interest.[36][25]
Hamas denied that the attack was against "civilians" and said that it views them as soldiers.[38]
At least 260 bodies have been found at the site of an Israeli music festival following Saturday's attack by Hamas, according to Israeli rescue service Zaka.
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.)
Die Familie hat die junge Frau auf dem Video erkannt, ein Ex-Freund von Shani Louk hat es ihnen zugeschickt. ... Die 22-Jährige lebt allein in Tel Aviv... (transl. The family recognized the young woman in the video; an ex-boyfriend of Shani Louk sent it to them. ... The 22-year-old lives alone in Tel Aviv...)