A place ‘soaked with their dances, music and blood’: Nova victims remembered at scene of massacre

As the Tribe of Nova ceremony was about to begin on Wednesday evening at 6:29 p.m., echoing the morning hour when the desert rave was attacked by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, there was mostly silence as hundreds of people walked around the grove of memorial plaques placed there for each person killed.

A total of 378 people were murdered at the festival, including 344 civilians and 34 security personnel, and another 44 people were taken captive as hostages into Gaza.

Nitza Davidi sat on a chair next to the plaque in memory of her son, Barak Davidi, who was 28 when he was killed at a roadside bomb shelter near Kibbutz Alumim, as he tried to escape from the rave to which he had only arrived hours earlier.

“He’s just… missing for the last three years,” said Davidi, adding that she had moved out of her Holon apartment after Barak was killed, and that their family had fallen apart.

“His father doesn’t come here at all,” said Davidi. “I don’t come much either. But the ceremony will be held here every year because all the angels, all the holy ones are here,” she said, gesturing to the hundreds of plaques around her.

On Wednesday evening, two events were held to mark the third anniversary of the bloody 2023 Hamas attack: the major memorial ceremony organized by Kumu in Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park, and the event at Re’im, the site of the Nova desert rave. It was the first time the two ceremonies were held on the same night, but organizers for both felt it was vital to hold their events on the anniversary of the day the massacre occurred.

Reef Peretz, CEO of the Nova Tribe Community Association, which supports the survivors and bereaved, said it was the first time all the survivors could attend, including the final 20 hostages who were released in October 2025, a year ago.

The memorial ceremony, attended by several thousand mourners and survivors, began with a moment of silence at 6:29 p.m.

Former hostage Elkhana Bohbot, who was abducted from the rave, recited the prayer for the bereaved in front of the field of memorial plaques, followed by a bereaved father reciting the Mourner’s Kaddish. The two men then lit a memorial candle.

Music played a major role in the 75-minute ceremony: Nova survivor Yuval Raphael, Israel’s Eurovision contestant in 2025, performed. Amir Benayoun and Shuli Rand sang a ballad, accompanied by images of each victim from the Nova. A final, powerful performance was performed on guitar by Ninet Tayeb, who wore a shirt that said, “We Will Dance Again.” Tayeb also led the crowd in singing the national anthem “HaTikvah” at the end.

The focus was on the bereaved families and friends, many wearing shirts featuring the face of their deceased loved one.

“We are here to tell their stories, and to remember, and reflect, and reminisce, and say to the world: we will dance again, we will live again,” President Isaac Herzog said in his opening remarks. “We are a nation in agony, but we are showing immense resilience. This whole region, which was attacked barbarically on October 7, is now rebuilding.”

Meir Zohar, whose daughter Bar Zohar was killed at the Nova, and was one of the organizers of the ceremony, said the Nova site “was soaked with their dances and music and their blood.”

Zohar noted that after destruction one must pick up the pieces, a lesson taught by those killed at the Nova, who tried to rescue one another that day, despite their differences, and despite not necessarily knowing one another.

“They saw people, they saw each other as sister and brother, they saw humans,” said Zohar, and asked everyone at the ceremony to look at someone different from them, and to look them in the eye.

“Learn how to talk to someone else,” he said. “Our unity is stronger than what separates us.”

Part of the ceremony included videos of bereaved parents, spouses and siblings speaking about their loved ones.

There was a man who lost his brother, and whose mother took her life two years later, leaving him alone, without any family, but he said he hopes to build a family of his own. A sister of a victim said that she was pregnant when her brother was killed, and she named her son Yam, the name he had hoped to use for his own child. Another sister spoke about her sister’s spirit, which she finds difficult to live without.

Other speakers represented those who played a role in setting up the memorial site at Re’im, including Amir Hodorov, a former IDF combat pilot and digital artist who created a digital collage of the faces of all those killed at the Nova, which is exhibited at the site.

At another moment, the ceremony’s video screen settled on the face of Jojo Rabia, the father of Yuval and Noam Rabia, who were killed alongside Noam’s fiancée Noy, at the smaller Pysduck rave held on October 7 near Kibbutz Nirim and Nir Oz. Rabia was introduced as a bereaved father who lives nearby and is at the site every day, a metal worker who built frames and memorial candle holders for the plaques, with which to remember the victims.

KKL-JNF Chairman Eyal Ostrinsky said that the site — which is cared for by KKL — has become a holy place for the bereaved families.

“For hours, this place was a valley of death, and the families did this wonderful thing, they chose life, with KKL. They’re always caring for this space,” said Ostrinsky. “I promise that your memorial stories are only yours. No one can take that from you. That is our commitment to you, and it is forever.”