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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.”
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.