ZAKA, an emergency search and rescue service in Israel, has recovered at least 260 bodies at a music festival near the Gaza–Israel border after Hamas terrorists threw grenades and sprayed automatic gunfire at concertgoers early on Oct. 7, the organization said on Oct. 9.
The staggering death toll at this weekend’s open-air event, which is called the Supernova Sukkot Gathering, will go down in Israeli history as the country’s worst civilian massacre.
Video footage circulating on social media shows what appears to be paragliders descending on the gathering located in the Negev Desert. Moments later, a separate video shows concertgoers running through an open field with gunshots firing in the background.
Festival organizers said they’re helping Israeli security forces to locate attendees who are still missing. Communities near festival grounds also came under attack, with Hamas terrorists reportedly abducting dozens of people, including children and disabled civilians.
Officials said the death toll may rise as teams continue to clear the area.
“It was just a massacre, a total massacre,” said Arik Nani, a 26-year-old festivalgoer who escaped the music event where he was celebrating his birthday with friends.
“We didn’t know where to go,” he added. “I found myself with a friend, we found ourselves completely afraid and in shock, we ran just to understand what was happening to us.”
As Israel woke up to the horrifying sound of sirens as a barrage of rockets was fired from the Gaza Strip in an unprecedented surprise attack on Oct. 7, concertgoers recalled that terrorists converged on the open-air event while others waited near bomb shelters to gun down people who were seeking refuge.
“I felt like existential fear, I have never felt so close to death, this time I really felt like it was the end,” said Zohar Maariv, a 23-year-old who had to jump out of the car she was escaping in when it came under fire from two sides.
Jos Vranken, a Belgian DJ who was on stage a day before the attack, told VRT News that his friends were still at the event when Hamas launched the attack. The 41-year-old explained that his friends detailed the horror to him, saying members of the terrorist group threw hand grenades into the audience prior to opening fire. He also said armed men guarded one of the exits and killed anyone who tried to flee.
“Everything was very normal until Hamas suddenly invaded with paragliders, mopeds, and cars,” Mr. Vranken told the news outlet. “I was a few hours away from the festival, but unfortunately I know many people who were still there.”
According to Mr. Vranken, who is currently stuck in Tel Aviv for a few more days, dozens of festivalgoers, mainly young women, have been kidnapped and taken to Gaza.
More details about the abductions have started to emerge online. In one video circulating on social media, a young Israeli woman reportedly named Noa Argamani is forced onto a motorbike as she pleads with the two men allegedly abducting her to set her free. NTD News could not independently verify the video.
Amir Moadi, a roommate of Ms. Argamani, told CNN that she knows about a half dozen people who had attended the festival and have since gone missing. “It’s very difficult when you see someone that is so close to you and you know so much being treated like this,” she said.
Other social media footage shows some of those taken captive from the party being led away by Hamas terrorists.
Unprecedented Attack
After breaching Israel’s heavily guarded border in a surprise attack on Oct. 7, the terrorist group who reigned war on the country has said they’ve taken at least 130 individuals hostage.
Hamas senior representative Moussa Abu Marzouk claims that the terrorist group is currently holding 100 Israeli hostages in Gaza, including high-ranking Israeli Defense Force (IDF) officials, according to the Arabic language news outlet al-Ghad. This is in addition to 30 Israelis held hostage by Islamic Jihad, a smaller terror organization that has also claimed responsibility for the attack on Israel.
The Israeli military said on Oct. 9 that it struck hundreds of Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets in the Gaza Strip overnight and had sent four combat divisions south where it continued to battle the Islamist militants.
Fighting between Israeli forces and the Hamas terrorist group was ongoing at seven or eight locations near Gaza two days after Hamas terrorists killed 700 Israelis in the deadliest raid into Israeli territory since Egypt and Syria’s attacks in the Yom Kippur war nearly five decades ago.
The U.S. Department of State, meanwhile, announced in a statement on Oct. 9 that at least nine American citizens have been killed in Israel following Hamas’s unprecedented attacks.
“At this time, we can confirm the deaths of nine U.S. citizens,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said. “We can confirm that there are unaccounted-for U.S. citizens, and we are working with our Israeli partners to determine their whereabouts,” he added.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.