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‘The Holocaust, all over again’: The massacre at the Israeli rave, in survivors’ words
TEL AVIV (JTA) — One of the earliest shocking atrocities to emerge from Hamas’ invasion of Israel on Saturday happened at the Tribe of Nova music festival, an all-night rave near Kibbutz Re’im on the Gaza border.
Terrorists descended upon the festival on Saturday morning, spraying the thousands of revelers, most of them young adults, with gunfire as they escaped by car and fled through an open field. Photos and video show panicked crowds running for their lives, cars riddled with bullets and a road strewn with dead bodies.
By the end of the massacre, 260 people were murdered — some, survivors say, after being raped. Others were captured by the attackers or wounded by the gunfire. Missiles rained down on the area throughout the attack.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency asked four survivors to share how they escaped. Here are their stories, in their own words:
The rave began on Friday night in a large outdoor space. At about 6 a.m., partygoers begin to hear sirens warning them of incoming rockets from Gaza.
Yaelle Bonnet, 21: We went to Nova, we got there at something like 1 and didn’t stop dancing until 6:30 in the morning, when suddenly, sirens started. … The producers stopped the music pretty early and asked everyone to break up, go to their cars and go home. We found the car we came in, got in and started leaving. No one really understood the extent of the situation.
Gad Liebersohn, 21: I got to the party at 4 at night. Around 6, 6:30 the sirens started, the music stopped. Missiles and rockets started coming from everywhere. We heard booms everywhere.
Yarin Amar, 22: The sights I have seen won’t leave my mind for a long time yet. Dancing at a party with friends, and out of nowhere rockets that won’t stop. You get a warning about terrorists driving out. Not a second has gone by, and those hundreds of terrorists are shooting at us from every direction.
A view of the destruction on the grounds of the Israeli rave. (Ilia Yefimovich/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Initially, many of the partygoers attempt to escape by car, but a traffic jam quickly forms and they are unable to leave the area before the shooting begins. Drivers exit their cars and begin to flee on foot.
Yaam Grimberg: I grabbed two good friends that were with me, and another friend. We escaped to the car, we started driving. We were blocked everywhere. They started shooting at us.
Yaelle: There was traffic and we understood why, when two cars ahead of us, they just came out of the pickup truck. I don’t remember exactly how they looked. It was a white pickup truck, they were also wearing white. They got out of the pickup truck with really big rifles, started to point and shoot everywhere.
Gad: At some point there was an announcement from the police, shouting into a megaphone that all the cars need to leave via the exit. I got in the car and started driving toward the exit, and that’s where the yelling had started: “Terrorists! Terrorists! They’re shooting at us!”
They started to shoot at the cars, at us. At that moment everyone parked their cars, left their cars there and just started fleeing.
Yarin: Cars are getting shot up. I left the car and ran, just ran, and on the way I see people murdered and falling to the ground in front of me.
Video from the massacre shows a crowd of people running through an open field, in full view of the terrorists. Many get shot in the back and are killed or injured.
Yaelle: We kept going with the car until it got stuck in the field. We didn’t know if we should stay with the car or escape on foot. What do you do when you’re being shot at?
Gad: You see people being massacred like ducks falling next to you. One person falls next to you, gets hit by a bullet, then another person falls next to you, gets hit by a bullet. You hide under some car, the car starts driving.
I was left out in the open so I ran to the forest to my left. I started to run into the forest and hide. Then they started to shoot everywhere. There were rockets at the same time.
Yarin: With helplessness and tears in my eyes I grabbed hold of a guy I didn’t know and said, “Please stay with me, I’m scared, don’t go.” With the shooting, we had to keep running. We ran to the field to escape to the kibbutz, and then we realized they were everywhere.
A view of destroyed vehicles near the grounds of the Tribe of Nova music festival after Saturday’s deadly attack by Hamas (Ilia Yefimovich/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Some of the survivors escape the attackers by hiding alone or with others. Some go into bomb shelters and others hide in the area’s greenery as terrorists continue to advance on them. Two of the survivors told JTA that their calls to police went unanswered.
Yaam: We were able to hide in a shelter. Within a few minutes, I understood that if we stayed there they would just come and slaughter us, so I took the friends and we sprinted back to the car as bullets flew over our heads.
Yaelle: We joined a pretty big group of some people who had all escaped in the same direction, to the fields. We kept going, and there was a police officer, he didn’t have any bullets left in his gun, he seemed pretty scared, just like us. He didn’t have reception on his radio. He didn’t have much of anything.
Gad: After two hours of hiding and trying to get rescued — call the police, nothing helps, army, nothing comes to us — for two hours I’m hiding and hearing people getting kidnapped and women getting raped, and without end you hear people dying, begging for their life, women begging for their life. And you can’t make a sound, because they’ll find you too, kidnap, kill you too.
Yarin: We hid in the trees, trying to get help from the police with no answer. We heard shouting in Arabic, unending shooting, and then three terrorists were in front of us.
As terrorists continue to hunt for people to kill and capture, the people they are chasing have to escape again and again, running as fast as they can and finding new places to hide.
Gad: At some point, the terrorists found us hiding. We were about 20 people hiding in the same place. They found us, they killed some of us. I was able to get away.
I kept running, running, running. There were four terrorists coming in my direction. I couldn’t move. I froze in place. A friend who was hiding came out of his hiding place and pulled my hand and took me with him to the hiding place. We hid in the hiding place for four hours.
I heard terrorists getting closer and closer to us, and we didn’t move. Then we heard them finally getting farther and farther away. When there was total quiet, we left the bush where we were hiding. As we left the bush we saw we had run too far and reached the fence with Gaza.
Yarin: We escaped, we just ran anywhere, knowing the terrorists were chasing after us and shooting at us. That’s when I saw my death with my own eyes. I knew that as I was running I could get hit by a bullet. It was the two of us, with the knowledge that I didn’t know what had happened to the others.
I tried to call people who could help, who would find me, and after call after call to the police with no answer I understood that my chances were slim. Hour after hour passed as we were sitting in the bushes, and the shooting was only growing louder, and unending explosives, rockets and grenades.
A dead body on the grounds of the Tribe of Nova music festival after Saturday’s deadly attack by Hamas. (Ilia Yefimovich/picture alliance via Getty Images)
After hours of running and hiding, the survivors were rescued because they made contact with the army or police or with Israelis passing by who were able to bring them to a secure town. Yaelle’s group connected with the police and was directed to safety. Gad hid in a tree with a friend. Yarin sent a series of panicked texts to a soldier in her phone contacts named Naveh, begging him to come rescue her and her companion, Netanel.
Yaam: At some point, a team from the IDF arrived, so I took advantage of their fighting to take cover. We got into the car and started to drive crazy fast through the area.
I kept the window open so I could hear where they were shooting at me, and try to drive in the opposite direction. They just shot at us from every direction, so you have no idea where to drive. After a couple hours I was able to take us to Kibbutz Tze’elim and there, thank God, we were safe.
Yaelle: In the end, they directed us to Moshav Patish, that was the closest and safest place. They directed everyone there. We walked I don’t know how much time.
We walked three to four hours, 20 kilometers, according to what I saw on the map.
Gad: As we were hiding in the tree we heard yelling. Someone was screaming, “Hello! Hello!” We didn’t know if it was an Arab or Jew who had come to save us but at that point we had nothing to lose. We went out to see who it was, and it was a Jew who managed to extricate us.
We got into his car and drove a bit in the car to find other people. We found three other people hiding in the forest and got them into the car, and he took us to a nearby farming community that was safe.
Yarin: I looked at Netanel, I said to him, “Don’t breathe now and don’t move.” We played dead for a few hours without moving, hoping some miracle would happen. I looked at the sky and it was just me and God. I prayed and said to Him, “Please God, I want to live, I’ll do anything, I’m still just a child.”
After a long time Naveh, the soldier, was able to find us as he promised me.
The survivors imparted that the horrors they saw that day will stay with them.
Yaelle: We didn’t have water, everyone was pretty quiet. It felt like a death caravan, like we’re experiencing the Holocaust all over again. That’s very hard to say, and I’m letting myself say it.
We didn’t have water, we didn’t have anything, but I knew we were getting somewhere, so we kept going.
Only coming back, on the bus, did I see corpses on the ground from cars that had been shot.
Gad: When you drive on the road, you see bodies in every direction, without end — a lot of corpses, a lot of dead people. The army got there only after about nine hours, that’s it. By the time we got to the road we saw corpses everywhere of people who were at the party.
Yarin: I’m sad that I need to be scared in my country, and thankful for the life I got back.
—
The post ‘The Holocaust, all over again’: The massacre at the Israeli rave, in survivors’ words appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”
Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.
“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.
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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly
US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.
A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.
Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.
On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.
BREAKING: PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTORS CONFRONT “ISRAELI” AMBASSADOR DANNY DANON AT THE UNITED NATIONS
1/5 pic.twitter.com/4G1VYEMGzV
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) September 14, 2025
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.
US activist group plays soccer with Bibi’s mock decapitated HEAD right outside NYC UN HQ
Peep shot at 00:40
Footage posted by INDECLINE collective just as UN General Assembly about to kick off
‘Following the game, ball was donated to Palestinian Genocide Museum’ pic.twitter.com/TQ84sgZhKr
— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025
Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.
WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”
“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.
“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.
JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel
Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.
The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.
While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.
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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis
Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot
Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.
“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”
Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.
“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.
Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.
She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.
The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”
Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”
The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.