RSS
Survivors of the Nova massacre on Oct. 7 work through trauma at unique Israeli therapy center

KIBBUTZ HAZOREA, Israel — Fifteen young men and women, seemingly oblivious to their surroundings and to each other, dance around a bucolic field, twisting their bodies to trance music blasting through their headphones.
Beyond their earphones is silence, except for the constant rumble of fighter jets taking off from Ramat David air base in the nearby Jezreel Valley.
Yet the aircraft and the dancers are connected.
Some of these jets are heading south toward Gaza, to bomb the hideouts and munitions storehouses of Hamas terrorists who on Oct. 7 killed 1,200 Israelis — including some 360 attendees of the Nova music festival that took place that morning in a field near Gaza. In recent weeks, survivors of the massacre at the Nova rave have been coming to this retreat center at Kibbutz Hazorea to try to overcome their trauma.
“This is the first time I’ve danced since that day,” said Noa Maman, 21, of Yokneam. “It’s been very hard for me.”
About 60 people have participated so far in the trauma recovery program being run by Free Spirit Experience, a nonprofit group that in normal times uses its facilities at Hazorea (and another one in Cyprus) for treatment programs for young Jewish adults from Israel and abroad suffering from anxiety, depression, or drug or alcohol problems.
Free Spirit repurposed its trauma treatment program within two weeks of Oct. 7, launching the first of its three-day therapeutic workshops for Nova survivors on Oct. 23. Since then it has held six more, each with five to 15 participants and at no cost to attendees.
“We had a staff member whose cousin was injured in the festival; Each of us knew somebody who was there,” said Free Spirit’s managing director, Rami Bader. “We talked about the trauma these people might have and decided to use our resources to help them.”
Using yoga, pottery making, dancing, acupuncture, carpentry and even ice baths, survivors of the massacre gradually come out of their shells and begin to talk. The idea is to give participants a sense of safety and community to share and talk about their emotions. Some are able to open up in group therapy sessions; for others it happens over communal activities like preparing meals.
“When we have our first group meeting, some have been waiting for the opportunity to tell their stories, but not all of them,” Bader said. “By the end all of them share, but not because we pushed them. Many times, it’s not even us. We just sit there and they share among themselves.”
Trauma survivors who seek help early on have a chance to build resilience rather than develop PTSD, experts say.
“We know that post-traumatic stress disorder can develop a few months after the trauma, or years after,” Bader said.
Omer Ovadia, 24, lost three of his best friends in the Nova attack. He has memorialized them with a tattoo on his right forearm bearing their names: Dvir, Lia and Sahar.
Noa Maman, left, and Ido Cohen, both 21, attended a three-day therapy program at Kibbutz Hazorea in northern Israel for survivors of the Nova party massacre by Hamas attackers on Oct. 7, 2023. (Larry Luxner)
“It was about 6:30 a.m. when Hamas started to shoot rockets,” Ovadia recalled. “Immediately, they stopped the music and everybody ran to their cars. We started driving, but after seven minutes terrorists came running after us with RPGs and grenades, running after everybody. We quickly left the car and started running east, toward Patish. I remembered my army survival skills, so we zigzagged left and right, kicking up dust so they couldn’t see or shoot at us.”
By 3 p.m, over eight hours after the attack began, Ovadia and 20 others — all hungry, thirsty and filthy — arrived at Patish. Dozens of others in their group, including his three friends, didn’t make it. Some of his friends were taken captive to Gaza.
The trauma starting to hit him that evening.
“I was sitting in a car and started to cry, realizing what we had been through,” Ovadia said. “Even now I still don’t know the depth of the trauma.”
Tamir Rotman, a psychologist and Free Spirit’s clinical director, said survivors of massacres often feel extremely agitated, tortured by flashbacks and unable to leave home. He tries to help them find stability and a sense of normalcy.
“The huge factor is alleviating guilt and self-criticism,” Rotman said. “It’s very typical for people who go through extreme situations to feel survivor’s guilt. For example, some will say, ‘I pushed my friends to come, but I survived and they didn’t.’ Or ‘Why didn’t I fight back?’ These are normal mechanisms that our brain uses to try to gain some control over the situation.”
Many participants in Free Spirit’s program say that being in the sheltered environment at Hazorea has helped them find some relief. Maman said it took her two months just to gather the strength to spend a night away from home and come to Hazorea. She still hasn’t been able to return to her job.
“I’m not working at all now. I can’t focus my attention on anything specific for more than a few hours because it takes too much energy,” Maman said. “I’m exhausted. My head is always taking me back to that day.”
Omer Ovadia, 24, displays a Hebrew tattoo honoring three friends — Dvir, Liav and Sahar — who were killed on Oct. 7, 2023, by Hamas terrorists at the Nova music festival near Gaza. (Larry Luxner)
She added, “After what happened, it was really hard to trust other people and open up like this. But this experience has given me hope. There are good people with good intentions, and there’s a future for humanity.”
After several sessions, Bader is trying to raise the funds necessary to keep the program going. Each three-day workshop costs $40,000, and Bader says Free Spirit needs to raise $200,000 because its other revenue-generating programs are on hold due to the war. (Supporters can contribute online to support the program at freespiritexperience.org/donate.)
Free Spirit has moved its regular therapy programs treating anxiety, depression, and alcohol and drug issues to its site in Cyprus. That program, which caters to Jews from around the world and includes Jewish components, aims at fostering wellbeing and a sense of purpose through communal activities and therapeutic care. A similar philosophy guides Free Spirit’s unique Oct. 7 trauma program.
Ido Cohen of Yokneam decided to try Free Spirit after struggling to recover from his Nova experience on his own.
When the attack began on Oct. 7, Cohen, 21, a project manager at a human resources firm who makes trance music in his spare time, thought the booms he was hearing were coming from the show stage. Then he saw rockets exploding in the air and everyone rush for the exits. Sleep-deprived and high on ecstasy, Cohen said, he and his friends had trouble finding their car. As soon as they began driving they heard gunshots and saw other cars with bullet holes and shattered glass littering the road.
They started running through the fields, hiding in trenches and inside bushes amid explosions and gunfire. Six and a half hours would pass before they reached a dirt road where a vehicle took them to safety at Patish.
Cohen said his life hasn’t been the same since.
“I was a heavy weed smoker before this attack,” he said. “After Oct. 7, I stopped smoking. I stopped eating. I stopped living. I didn’t leave my house for two weeks. It was pure hell. I don’t think it’s a question of time. This will be a part of my life forever. I just need to accept it.”
Recovery can take a long time. Ovadia has come back to Free Spirit for three rounds of therapy, finding each time a greater degree of confidence and optimism about the future. He says he believes it will take him a year or two to recover emotionally.
“I have no doubt that in the end I’m going to be fine,” Ovadia said. “And I’m sure I’ll be stronger.”
—
The post Survivors of the Nova massacre on Oct. 7 work through trauma at unique Israeli therapy center appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
UN Security Council Meets on Iran as Russia, China Push for a Ceasefire

Members of the Security Council cast a vote during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the 3rd anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at UN headquarters in New York, US, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/David Dee Delgado
The U.N. Security Council met on Sunday to discuss US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites as Russia, China and Pakistan proposed the 15-member body adopt a resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Middle East.
It was not immediately clear when it could be put to a vote. The three countries circulated the draft text, said diplomats, and asked members to share their comments by Monday evening. A resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Britain, Russia or China to pass.
The US is likely to oppose the draft resolution, seen by Reuters, which also condemns attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites and facilities. The text does not name the United States or Israel.
“The bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities by the United States marks a perilous turn in a region that is already reeling,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Sunday. “We now risk descending into a rathole of retaliation after retaliation.”
“We must act – immediately and decisively – to halt the fighting and return to serious, sustained negotiations on the Iran nuclear program,” Guterres said.
The world awaited Iran’s response on Sunday after President Donald Trump said the US had “obliterated” Tehran’s key nuclear sites, joining Israel in the biggest Western military action against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution.
U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that while craters were visible at Iran’s enrichment site buried into a mountain at Fordow, “no one – including the IAEA – is in a position to assess the underground damage.”
Grossi said entrances to tunnels used for the storage of enriched material appear to have been hit at Iran’s sprawling Isfahan nuclear complex, while the fuel enrichment plant at Natanz has been struck again.
“Iran has informed the IAEA there has been no increase in off-site radiation levels at all three sites,” said Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran requested the U.N. Security Council meeting, calling on the 15-member body “to address this blatant and unlawful act of aggression, to condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”
Israel‘s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said in a statement on Sunday that the U.S. and Israel “do not deserve any condemnation, but rather an expression of appreciation and gratitude for making the world a safer place.”
Danon told reporters before the council meeting that it was still early when it came to assessing the impact of the U.S. strikes. When asked if Israel was pursuing regime change in Iran, Danon said: “That’s for the Iranian people to decide, not for us.”
The post UN Security Council Meets on Iran as Russia, China Push for a Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Israel Rejects Critical EU Report Ahead of Ministers’ Meeting

FILE PHOTO: Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
Israel has rejected a European Union report saying it may be breaching human rights obligations in Gaza and the West Bank as a “moral and methodological failure,” according to a document seen by Reuters on Sunday.
The note, sent to EU officials ahead of a foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday, said the report by the bloc’s diplomatic service failed to consider Israel’s challenges and was based on inaccurate information.
“The Foreign Ministry of the State of Israel rejects the document … and finds it to be a complete moral and methodological failure,” the note said, adding that it should be dismissed entirely.
The post Israel Rejects Critical EU Report Ahead of Ministers’ Meeting first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Pope Leo Urges International Diplomacy to Prevent ‘Irreparable Abyss’

FILE PHOTO: Pope Leo XIV holds a Jubilee audience on the occasion of the Jubilee of Sport, at St. Peter’s Basilica, at the Vatican June 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi/File Photo
Pope Leo on Sunday said the international community must strive to avoid war that risks opening an “irreparable abyss,” and that diplomacy should take the place of conflict.
US forces struck Iran’s three main nuclear sites overnight, joining an Israeli assault in a major new escalation of conflict in the Middle East as Tehran vowed to defend itself.
“Every member of the international community has a moral responsibility: to stop the tragedy of war before it becomes an irreparable abyss,” Pope Leo said during his weekly prayer with pilgrims.
“No armed victory can compensate for the pain of mothers, the fear of children, the stolen future. Let diplomacy silence the weapons, let nations chart their future with peace efforts, not with violence and bloody conflicts,” he added.
“In this dramatic scenario, which includes Israel and Palestine, the daily suffering of the population, especially in Gaza and other territories, risks being forgotten, where the need for adequate humanitarian support is becoming increasingly urgent,” Pope Leo said.
The post Pope Leo Urges International Diplomacy to Prevent ‘Irreparable Abyss’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.