Nova families tear their shirts in act of mourning at Knesset protest

Family members of the hundreds killed at the Nova music festival on October 7 gather at the Knesset to protest the lack of work being done to conserve the massacre site and create a memorial to the fallen.

Many of them tear their shirts, a traditional Jewish act of mourning, during the protest.

“We lost our children, the most precious thing. You could not keep them safe and now for nine months there is no progress, nothing is happening,” says Shimon Buskila, who lost his son Yarden. “I feel like I’m in the first day of shiva [the seven-day Jewish mourning period], and that’s why I have torn my shirt.”

“All we are asking is that someone take responsibility for the Re’im forest, because it is abandoned and no one is taking responsibility,” says Hadas Semel, whose sister Sharon was killed.