‘Lies’: Bereaved families lash out, shouting, as IDF presents probe into Nova massacre

Chaos erupted Wednesday at the Expo Tel Aviv convention center, where the Israel Defense Forces met with families of victims of the Nova party massacre to present them with the results of its investigation into events at the doomed rave.

The investigation — whose findings are expected to be made public on Thursday — is one of 41 separate probes into battles and major incidents that took place during the October 7, 2023, onslaught, when Hamas-led terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostage, starting the ongoing war.

The Nova probe only investigated events that took place at the festival site itself, including the adjacent parking lot; it did not look into massacres on the nearby roads or bomb shelters, where some partygoers were killed, wounded or kidnapped. Those events fall under the purview of other probes.

Hebrew media reported that bereaved family members shouted at army representatives at the meeting. Some rejected the probe as unserious, while others accused the army of hiding details and trying to cover up the extent of its failures.

Cries included, “Where were you?” and “Liars,” as well as “You haven’t given us answers for two and a half hours!”

The findings were presented by Brig. Gen. (res.) Ido Mizrahi, who led the probe, and Maj. Gen. Dan Goldfus. It marked the first time that the military divulged details of its internal investigation to the public.

Many were unsatisfied with the presentation and demanded clearer answers from the army over its response to the events of October 7, when Hamas terrorists murdered 364 revelers who attended the overnight Nova music festival, and abducted 40 more partygoers to the Strip.

“They came with a very general investigation, without going into details. I didn’t expect more,” bereaved father Ophir Dor, whose son Idan was murdered at the rave, told Channel 12. “It lasted five minutes, and then the shouting began. Also cries of anguish and weeping.”

“This is the first time someone from the IDF is even speaking to us… My son was killed by an RPG missile, and the army says ‘We failed.’ But how do you fail like that and still have no answers?” Dor asked the Ynet news site.

The October Council, representing families of those killed on October 7 who are advocating a state commission of inquiry into the events of that day, described the findings as “at best imprecise, and at worst — lies.”

“It can’t be that in a number of weeks we’ll mark the second Memorial Day [since] the massacre, and still no state commission of inquiry has been established that will provide us with answers and prevent the next disaster,” it said.

Hadas Genis, whose brother, Joseph ‘Sefi’ Genis, was killed at a bomb shelter while confronting an attacker, told Ynet that the families were asked to hand over their phones at the start of the presentation.

One bereaved mother ran to the stage with a photo of her dead son’s body and demanded it be included in the presentation, Genis recalled, saying that the army commanders present promised that the image would remain onstage all day.

Rachel Moshe, whose son, Oz Moshe, was killed by terrorists as he tried to flee the festival, said the army was “lying” to families, adding: “There are no real answers in the report.”

“I was in a video call with my son when he was murdered together with his girlfriend,” she recalled in tears, according to Ynet.

“Their breakdown of the timing doesn’t match what happened in the field,” she said, denying specifically that the army scrambled a helicopter to the site. “It didn’t happen. Senior officers in the army should go to jail.”

Daisy Moshe, Oz’s sister, added: “Where were they a month before, when the surveillance soldiers said there were terrorists along the border fence?”

“There are no names of the people who approved the festival, we want names,” she fumed.

The probe was presented Sunday-Tuesday to families of those taken hostage.

Individual presentations of the probe were also scheduled to be held on Wednesday for each of the families of 16 soldiers, many of whom were off duty, who were killed in the attack at the Nova festival.

A separate, group presentation was scheduled for the families of 16 police officers and two Shin Bet agents who were slain.

On Thursday, they will be presented to survivors of the festival.