Thousands of people were gathered at the Supernova music festival near the village of Re'im in southern Israel on Oct. 7, when Palestinian militants breached the nearby Israel-Gaza barrier in a coordinated attack. More than 200 festival attendees were killed in the ensuing assault, and many more were wounded.
Zac Bernard was among the festival attendees who survived the attack, managing to evade the Hamas gunmen who fired on the unarmed civilians.
“They literally came into the festival at around 6:30 in the morning, everyone was dancing, enjoying themselves. And suddenly rockets start falling everywhere,” Mr. Bernard told NTD “Good Morning” on Wednesday, just four days after surviving the attack.
Hamas terrorists launched rockets into Israel around the same time gunmen breached the Israel-Gaza barrier, adding to the chaos of the attacks. As festivalgoers began to realize the danger, Mr. Bernard said many people ran to their cars and attempted to drive away, but were fired upon as they fled.
“There were tens of them just walking next to cars and shooting people inside of the cars,” Mr. Bernard recounted. “And we just ran for our lives as fast as we could. A lot of people didn’t manage to escape, and were just shot while running away.”
With their escape route cut off, Mr. Bernard and some of the other festival attendees scrambled to find hiding places. They managed to cover themselves in a pile of leaves near a tree. Other festival attendees were not so lucky in finding hiding places, and the gunmen continued firing on them as they fled.
“I guess they just saw other people and focused on them,” Mr. Bernard said.
He and the others hid for hours, waiting for the attack to end. At times, he thought he wouldn’t survive.
Terror Attacks A Part of Life For Israelis
Mr. Bernard stayed in hiding until the attack on the Supernova music festival finally ended, but lost one of his best friends during the attack. He spoke with NTD News on Wednesday shortly after attending the funeral.It was not the first time that a violent terrorist attack had touched his life.
When he was a schoolboy aged 11 or 12, a suicide bomber detonated a bomb at a nearby bakery, killing three people, he said.
Mr. Bernard said he lost another friend in 2014 in another suicide bombing attack.
A Lost Friend
The Oct. 7 attacks have reminded Tal Hartuv of her own experience of losing a friend and nearly dying herself in a stabbing attack carried out by Palestinian terrorists. A dual citizen of the United Kingdom and Israel, Ms. Hartuv was hiking with her friend Kristine Luken, a U.S. citizen, near Jerusalem on Dec. 18, 2010, when they were attacked by two men.The attackers bound and gagged Ms. Hartuv and Ms. Luken, and held them at knife-point. Ms. Hartuv recalls that after the two men found her Star-of-David necklace, they said in Arabic “Allahu Akbar” and “Cutal al yehud,” which translate to “Allah is greatest” and “Slaughter the Jews,” respectively. The two men proceeded to repeatedly stab Ms. Hartuv and Ms. Luken, who died of her wounds.
“I watched Hamas terrorists basically chop up my American Christian friend because they thought she was Jewish,” Ms. Hartuv told NTD News’ “Capitol Report” on Wednesday.
Ms. Hartuv sustained a collapsed lung, 30 broken bones, and 13 machete wounds in the assault, with one stab wound missing her heart by mere millimeters.
Miraculously, Mr. Hartuv survived the attack and was able to stagger to a parking lot where she found people who could alert authorities and render aid.
Waiting For The Fighting To Stop
Speaking about the Oct. 7 attacks, Ms. Hartuv said “Israel can never afford to lose one war.”“We are fighting harder, because this is the only hope of survival we have. Israel is the only state that will ever give us any protection,” she said.
Ms. Hartuv said the violence impacting Israel comes with an added “existential angst.” She said people in her community have confined themselves to their homes as they wait for the fighting between Palestinian terrorist groups and the Israeli Defense Forces to abate.
“In Israel, nobody’s really going out unless you have to. It’s like a ghost town. And so we’re kind of confined to our houses, except of course, if you’re serving,” she said.
“Your body is lethargic, and your mind is on steroids, right? We’re just watching the news all the time. You’re waiting for the next picture of somebody you know, you’re waiting to hear the bad news,” she said.
Since the attack on the Supernova music festival, Mr. Bernard said he’s been busy fielding calls from his friends’ parents, asking about their whereabouts. He said he hasn’t yet had much time to process his own experience.
“Once everything ends, I'll start coping with what I’ve been through. But at the moment, we haven’t got really time to do it,” he said. “We just need to help as much as we can. Be there for the people that haven’t made it.”
