Re'im Music Festival Massacre

On 7 October 2023, the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas initiated a surprise invasion of Israel from the Gaza Strip. As part of the attack, 364 civilians were killed and many more wounded by Hamas at the Supernova Sukkot Gathering, an open-air music festival celebrating the Jewish holiday of Sukkot near kibbutz Re'im. Kidnappings during the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, At least 40 hostages were also taken. This mass killing had the largest number of casualties out of a number of massacres targeting Israeli civilians in settlements adjacent to the Gaza Strip, that occurred as part of the 7 October invasion, alongside those at the settlements of Netiv HaAsara, Be'eri, Kfar Aza, Nir Oz and Holit.

At 6:30 am around sunrise, rockets were noticed in the sky. Around 7:00 am, a siren warned of an incoming rocket attack, prompting festivalgoers to flee. Subsequently, armed militants, dressed in military attire and using motorcycles, trucks and powered paragliders, surrounded the festival grounds and indiscriminately fired on individuals attempting to escape. Attendees seeking refuge in nearby locations, such as bomb shelters, bushes, and orchards, were killed while in hiding. Those who reached the road and parking were trapped in a traffic jam as militants fired at vehicles. The militants executed some wounded individuals at point-blank range as they crouched on the ground.

The details of the whereabouts and condition of the hostages are not publicly known. The massacre at the festival was the largest terror attack in Israel's history, and the worst Israeli civilian massacre ever.

Gathering and festivities

Supernova Sukkot Gathering was a weekend-long outdoor trance music festival that began on 6 October 2023 and was produced by an organizer called Nova (also referred to as Tribe of Nova). It was the Israeli edition (pre-festival event) of Universo Paralello, a psytrance festival started 23 years prior in Bahia, Brazil. It took place in the western Negev desert, approximately from the Gaza–Israel barrier, near kibbutz Re'im. The line-up included artists well-known in the psytrance scene, such as Astral Projection and Man With No Name. The organizers switched to the site only two days before, after the original location in southern Israel did not work out. Scheduled to coincide with Jewish holidays: the final day of Sukkot (6 October) and Simchat Torah (7 October), the rave was billed as a celebration of "friends, love and infinite freedom". The festival site had three stages, a camping zone, and an area with a bar and food. Attendees described the crowd as mostly consisting of Israelis of ages 20–40 from across the country. Attendance was reported to be 3,500 but figures vary. Security guards and police were present at the festival.

Hamas' assault

The musical festival was one of the first targets of Hamas' surprise attack against Israel in the early morning hours of 7 October 2023. Israeli security services investigations have found it unlikely that Hamas had advanced knowledge of the festival, citing, among other evidence, that the festival had been planned to run until Friday, October 6 and was only extended to Saturday the prior Wednesday. One attendee stated that after cutting the electricity, a group of approximately 50 Hamas gunmen arrived in vans and sprayed gunfire in all directions. Some of the Hamas gunmen who attacked the festival infiltrated Israel via motorized paragliders, arriving around 6:30 am.

As festival attendees fled in panic, jeeps filled with gunmen began firing at the escaping cars. Gunmen also blockaded roads. The open terrain left few places to hide. Many attendees who hid in the trees were murdered as militants methodically shot them. Others who hid in bushes and orchards managed to survive. The massacre took place amid a rocket siren, signaling a barrage of rockets fired into Israel. Independently verified drone footage of the site showed dozens of scorched, burnt cars and skid marks. Footage of the attack, posted on a Telegram channel, included graphic depictions of murder and hostage-taking.

The Hamas militants kidnapped an initally unknown number of participants however later reports gave the number at 40; videos on social media showed them being seized. The abducted concertgoers were taken to the Gaza Strip, where some were filmed in Hamas propaganda videos. Relatives and friends of the missing searched for information about the missing. Those abducted by Hamas militants included Shani Louk – a 22-year-old German-Israeli dual citizen, a British man, and a 25-year-old Israeli woman Noa Argamani. Three dual Brazilian-Israeli nationals who had attended the festival were also missing.

During the massacre, according to survivor and emergency responder testimony Hamas militants raped women attendees. According to survivor testimony released by Lahav 433, a young woman was gang raped by Hamas militants before being murdered. The testimony was published in Hebrew- and English-language Israel news outlets. According to ''Haaretz'', police reporter Josh Breiner, ZAKA emergency response personnel found naked women with injuries and their genitals mutilated, with others found bound and naked below their waists. The Israel Defense Forces have not verified the claims.

Casualties

Photographs from the aftermath of the attack show dozens of bodies at the festival grounds, including a badly burned body bound by cable ties. ZAKA, Israel's volunteer community emergency response group, reported retrieving at least 260 bodies from the party grounds. The death toll was expected to rise, as other paramedic organizations also responded to the scene. The final figure communicated by police on 17 November was 364 dead, including 17 police officers, and 40 abducted.

One of those killed was a British man serving in the Israeli military. Lior Asulin, a retired football striker who had played for Hapoel Tel Aviv Football Club, was also among those killed in the massacre. Journalists Shai Regev and Ayelet Arnin, who worked for the ''Ma'ariv'' newspaper and KAN broadcaster respectively, were also killed in the attack. The event's organizers, twins Osher Vaknin and Michael Vaknin, were killed in the attack as well.

Investigation

As of 14 October 2023, German authorities were aware of eight of its nationals having been taken as hostage in the overall events of 7 October 2023, including the case of Shani Louk, which gained great public interest. They opened a criminal probe against unknown Hamas members to investigate "belonging to a foreign terrorist group, hostage-taking and murder".

According to reports published on 17 November, the police concluded based on interrogations and their own investigations that Hamas did not know about the festival beforehand but came across it by accident and decided to attack it. Israeli security authorities suggested that Hamas likely lacked advance knowledge of the Nova Festival. Senior officials estimated that Hamas may have become aware of the event through drones or individuals parachuting, and subsequently directed terrorists to the location using their communication system. According to ''Haaretzs journalist Josh Breiner, a police source said that a police investigation indicated an IDF helicopter which had fired on Hamas militants "apparently also hit some festival participants" in Re'im music festival. The Israeli police denied the ''Haaretz'' report and said they found no evidence of civilian harm resulting from the aerial activities at that location.

According to ''Haaretz'', Israel's domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet and IDF military commanders discussed a possible threat to the Nova music festival just hours before the attack. However, no warnings were given to the organizers of the festival.

Response

Hamas initially denied the occurrence of the massacre and the killing of civilians. Later, it claimed that forces under Hamas never targeted civilians but that the massacre may have been carried out by independent groups of Gazan civilians after Hamas had defeated the Israeli forces in the region.

In response to this massacre, as well as other massacres and attacks in Operation Aqsa Flood, Israel declared a formal war on Hamas and began Operation Iron Sword.

On 19 November, the Palestinian Authority (PA) denied that Hamas conducted the massacre in a statement sent to foreign ministries worldwide and to the United Nations. The PA claimed that Israeli helicopters bombed civilians after the Hannibal Directive was activated, though the directive is claimed by Israel to have been canceled in 2016. The PA then withdrew the claim and told the U.S. National Security Council that this was not its official position.

Cultural Response

On October 9, two days after the massacre, Irish rock band U2 paid tribute to the victims during a Las Vegas concert by dedicating "Pride (In The Name of Love)" and modifying lyrics to reference the event.

Five Israeli DJs, including Skazi, performed a set during a memorial on 28 November 2023, at the site of the music festival.

See also

* Killing of Shani Louk
* Outline of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war
* Battle of Re'im, a 2023 Hamas attack on an Israeli military base as part of the same offensive
* Dolphinarium discotheque massacre, a 2001 Hamas attack in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv
* Coastal Road massacre
* List of massacres in Israel
* List of terrorist incidents in 2023
* Palestinian terrorism
* Moshe Dayan's eulogy for Ro'i Rothberg

Notes

References

External links

Official festival website
* Cohen, Roger

''The New York Times'', October 15, 2023

{{2023 Israel–Hamas war

2023 Hamas attack on Israel
2023 mass shootings in Asia
21st-century mass murder in Israel
Attacks on music venues
Cross-border operations
Islamic terrorist incidents in 2023
Kidnappings in Israel
Massacres during the 2023 Israel–Hamas war
Massacres in Israel during the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
Mass kidnappings of the 2020s
Mass shootings in Israel
October 2023 crimes in Asia
October 2023 events in Israel
Rave
Music festival massacre
Sukkot
Terrorist attacks attributed to Palestinian militant groups