Nova Music Festival Exhibit. Photo: NovaExhibition

A powerful exhibit memorializing the victims and survivors of the deadly Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel has opened in Washington, DC, offering visitors an intimate look at one of the most harrowing chapters in the Jewish state’s history through recovered artifacts, survivor testimony, and immersive multimedia displays. 

The Oct. 7 attack by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists on the Nova festival, part of a broader assault on southern Israel, left over 360 people dead and hundreds more injured, while 44 hostages were kidnapped. Overall, 1,200 people were murdered and 251 hostages were abducted during the onslaught, the deadliest day in Israel’s history and the largest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

Beyond the numbers, several investigations and eyewitness accounts have revealed that the terrorists perpetrated rampant sexual violence, including mass rape and torture, at the festival and elsewhere in southern Israel during their rampage.

The Nova massacre, which took place during what was meant to be a celebration of peace and music, has since become a symbol of the human toll of the conflict. 

The new exhibit in Washington, DC, seeks not only to honor the memory of those lost but also to bear witness to the trauma endured by survivors and to foster international awareness of the event’s impact. Proceeds from the exhibit help fund activities for the Tribe of Nova, a nonprofit organization that helps facilitate the recovery of the estimated 3,500 Nova Music Festival massacre survivors and their families.

According to the Nova Exhibition website, the event “is presented as a way to empower visitors to responsibly explore & bear witness to the tragic events of Oct. 7 and its aftermath.”

Maya Izotcheev, a survivor of the Nova massacre, told The Algemeiner that she hopes the exhibit will draw more empathy toward the survivors and an understanding of the Israeli perspective. Izotcheev wondered why the survivors of the Oct.7 attacks have not received as much empathy as others who have endured such atrocities.

“Is it because we are Israeli, because we are Jewish?” she asked. 

However, Izotcheev stopped short of pointing to explicit antisemitism to explain the lack of outcry, arguing that a lot of “misinformation” about Israel has spread around the world.

The exhibit came to Washington, DC about three weeks after an anti-Israel activist murdered two Israeli embassy staffers, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, as they were exiting a Jewish Museum event in the US capital. The double-murder has heightened security concerns surrounding the Nova exhibit. Guests must have their bags searched and walk through a set of metal detectors before entering.

Omri Rahoum, who lost three family members during the festival massacre — his pregnant sister, her fiancé, and his uncle — shared with The Algemeiner that survivors of the massacre have found solace in weekly therapy meetups. 

Rahoum also believes that the exhibit will allow visitors to “connect to the human side of the tragedy” and that the event serves “to honor those we lost, to protect their memory, and to share the beauty that was taken from us.”

“By stepping into the world of Nova — the music, the peace, the joy — and then seeing what was destroyed, visitors realize that this was not about politics, but about real people who were murdered while celebrating life,” Rahoum told The Algemeiner.

The post Nova Music Festival Exhibit Opens in DC Weeks Following Killing of Two Israel Embassy Staffers first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Khalid Abdalla being introduced to speak on stage ahead of the Massive Attack headlining concert at the LIDO Festival in London’s Victoria Park on June 6, 2025. Photo: YouTube screenshot

An Israeli concertgoer received a full refund of his ticket to see the British group Massive Attack headline London’s LIDO Festival last week after complaining to festival organizers about the “really hostile” environment at the largely politicized, anti-Israel performance, the UK’s Jewish Chronicle reported.

The Israeli, whose identity was not revealed, told the JC he felt “ambushed and unsafe” during the show at London’s Victoria Park on June 6 as part of the two-week music festival. A longtime fan of Massive Attack, he attended the performance with four other British-Israeli friends.

“When we arrived at the festival in Victoria Park, we saw a lot of ‘Free Palestine’ pins and T-shirts. We didn’t make anything out of it,” the fan said. “I wanted to hear Massive Attack, as someone who grew up on their music. I had no idea about any of their political views … They lost me as a fan.”

Before Massive Attack began their performance, pro-Palestinian activist and “The Crown” actor Khalid Abdalla took to the stage to talk about Palestinian solidarity and lead the audience in chanting “free Palestine.” Abdalla, who was introduced as a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), claimed in his speech that the pro-Palestinian solidarity movement is “the civil rights movement, the anti-apartheid movement, [and] the anti-genocide movement of our time, and that is why so many Jewish people all over the world are at the core of this movement, fighting for a world in which ‘never again’ means never again for anyone, and in which this brutal Israeli occupation ends.”

Massive Attack also displayed on large screens by the stage a montage of anti-Israel videos, including real-life footage of slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar – the mastermind of the deadly terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 – as he walks in a Hamas tunnel. Another video called for the release of convicted Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti.

“The concept of giving terrorists a stage is beyond me,” the Israeli music fan, who had friends murdered in the Oct. 7 attack, told the JC. “When we see Sinwar walking in the tunnels, it means we see our families and other Israelis in the tunnels. For us, it was glorifying him.”

The Israeli audience member said the crowd at the Massive Attack concert felt “really hostile,” so he and his group of friends ultimately decided to leave the set. During their exit, they met others who “also felt intimidated,” “scared” and “very threatened.”

In total, around 15 people exited the concert, the JC reported. They approached festival promoters, expressed their concerns, and gave their contact information. The Israeli man said later that same night, he received an email from promoters with an apology. He also received a full refund for his ticket to the LIDO festival, travel expenses, and the amount he spent on drinks at the venue.

The Israeli music fan accused LIDO Festival organizers of false advertising for not warning ticket holders about the political nature of the event.

“Massive Attack have a right to do the show as they want to, but the fact that no one told us PSC were going to be on stage – that it would be an orchestrated political event – it’s not about me being pro-Palestinian or not,” he said. “I didn’t know I was going to see propaganda on stage. It caught us off guard completely. It was about organizing a political event. Massive Attack and PSC were selling official merchandise, T-shirts designed for this festival, allowing PSC to be on stage, allowing them to put videos on the big screen – it’s not a fluke. It was well coordinated and organized.”

A Bristol-based band, Massive Attack has participated in a cultural boycott of Israel since 1999 and are longtime critics of Israel, regularly accusing the country of war crimes, apartheid, occupation, and genocide. In a released statement, they claimed videos shown at the LIDO Festival do not glorify or celebrate “any of the featured subjects,” and were taken out of context.

The post Israeli Concertgoer Gets Full Refund After Complaining About Anti-Israel Messaging at Massive Attack Show first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo

Some 130 news outlets and advocacy groups objected this week to Israel’s (non-existent) “ban” on journalism in Gaza. When pressed, journalists tend to admit that they actually do have access — but then claim that access is too limited (limits which are actually required by international law). Further complaints include: that journalists are being killed in Gaza in record numbers (even though a combatant with a press card is not a journalist under international law) and that Israel cannot reliably investigate itself (even though almost every modern Western democracy does so). It’s high time for a reality check.

The first claim, which is as common as it is absurd, is that the world cannot possibly know what’s happening in Gaza because Israel won’t allow the press to enter.

Just a few of the press outlets that have repeatedly entered Gaza over the past 19 months of conflict include: CNN, ABC, NBC, FOX News, The BBC, The New York Times, France24 and many, many more.

When confronted with this inconvenient truth, journalists (or activists) typically pivot to arguing that this massive access simply “doesn’t count” because it requires an IDF escort. This second claim is equally absurd: not only because the journalist is bizarrely contradicting their earlier claim that the access doesn’t exist at all, but also because, just like every conflict in the modern era, allowing the press unrestricted access to a combat zone violates international law.

Article 79 of the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions requires that military forces must protect journalists in combat zones. Western countries that follow international law almost universally understand this to mean that journalists must be either embedded with military forces, or must follow specific security restrictions, in order that they may be protected in the manner that international law requires.

In contrast to disingenuous claims by the Foreign Press Association that Israel’s restrictions are “unprecedented,” similar restrictions were implemented by: the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan (2001–2021), the United Kingdom during its Iraq mission (2003-2009), Canada during its Afghanistan mission (2006–2014), France during Operation Serval in Mali (2013–2014), Germany under its Bundeswehr guidelines in Afghanistan (2002–2014), Italy during its Afghanistan and Iraq missions (2003–2014), Australia’s ADF rules in Afghanistan (2009–2013), Norway during its Afghanistan mission (2002–2014) and Ukraine during its current conflict with Russia.

In conflicts around the world, the press often complain that restricting access results in a sanitized view of the war zone: what amounts to no more than government controlled propaganda. Yet legal scholars have long pointed out that the present system of embedding is freer, better, and safer than any alternative that could be realistically possible in the real world.

Israel serves as a case-in-point: international coverage of Israel is not always favorable — in fact quite the contrary.  Yet even journalists who harshly, unfairly, and sometimes even untruthfully criticize Israel, continue to not only find negative stories to report, but also continue to enjoy full access without retribution. If this is “propaganda,” then Israel is clearly not very good at it.

Another common criticism is that a “record number” of journalists have been killed in Gaza. Put aside that the figures provided by the Hamas terror organization out of Gaza are not entirely reliable, as well as the unfair assumption that everyone who dies in Gaza is killed by Israel (and never by Hamas).

Never mind that the math doesn’t work — even the exaggerated and unreliable claims against Israel are not actually “record breaking.” Finally, ignore the irony of a journalist complaining about the dangers in Gaza, while simultaneously objecting to IDF protection. Even if none of that were the case, there is another, even more fundamental issue at play — many local “journalists” in Gaza are also members of Hamas or other militarily active terror organizations that habitually engage in war crimes. In some cases, these “journalists” have held Israelis hostage in their private homes, subjecting them to starvation, torture and rape.

Under the same Article 79 (subsection 2), a journalist who engages in combat, either directly or by aiding enemy combatants, loses their “civilian” status and becomes a legitimate military target pursuant to Articles 43 and 44 of the Protocol. This exception to Article 79 is essential: because if a country could never attack actual enemy combatants simply because they happen to carry a press ID, then international law would have effectively outlawed self defense.

Finally, some journalists object that Israeli information regarding events in Gaza cannot be trusted because Israel “investigates itself” over potential war crimes.

Again, the premise is absurd: almost all modern Western democracies investigate their own militaries, including: the US Army’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID), the United Kingdom’s Service Prosecuting Authority (SPA) Canada’s Canadian Forces National Investigation Service (CFNIS) France’s Gendarmerie prévôtale (Prévôté) Norway’s Military Police (Militærpolitiet) and Germany’s Militärische Abschirmdienst (MAD).

Israel’s Military Advocate General (MAG) office has even more investigative independence than its international peers, because it exists outside of the military chain of command, reporting instead directly to the Attorney General: a level of independence almost unheard of in the modern world. Israel’s Attorney General, in turn, is a civilian position, and enjoys significant judicial protection against outside influences, even by the elected government itself.

Israel has a notoriously independent judicial system, a truth that came into the spotlight during the judicial reform protests of 2022-3.  At the time, some Israelis argued that the judiciary’s enormous independence is excessive while others asserted that it is the correct amount, but there was no question that the level of judicial independence is quite a lot- – even compared to other countries.

Israel’s highly independent judiciary, which is often antagonistic toward its own government, has consistently ruled that the IDF’s policies (including those regarding journalist access to Gaza) comply with local and international law. In the rare cases where individual soldiers violate the IDF’s rules of conduct, Israel’s MAG and the wider judicial system have never been shy about bringing prosecutions, and where appropriate, criminal penalties as well.

In short, the major journalistic complaints against Israel appear to be: 1. that the IDF follows international law (even though some journalists seem to feel that international law shouldn’t apply to them); and 2. that Israel acts similarly to other modern, Western democracies when conducting and investigating military activities. In the world after October 7, 2023, which was the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, there are much greater criticisms to be made against much worse parties than a modern, Western democracy that follows international law.

Daniel Pomerantz is the CEO of RealityCheck, an organization dedicated to deepening public conversation through robust research studies and public speaking.

The post Don’t Believe the Lie That Israel Is ‘Banning’ Journalists From Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.