Top Netanyahu aide clarifies comments about slaughter at music festival

The director general of the Prime Minister’s Office, Yossi Shelley, says he was misunderstood when he said yesterday that participants at an all-night music festival outside Kibbutz Re’im close to the Gaza border “contributed to the chaos” during the brutal Hamas attack Saturday morning.

At least 260 people were massacred at the rave; others were taken hostage by the terrorists.

Responding to questions during an interview on Channel 12 about the government’s reaction time, Shelley said that “the party made a not insubstantial contribution to the chaos,” adding “I’m not casting blame but sometimes there are cumulative conditions, this is a situation which no one planned.”

Shelley said the process of identifying the fatalities and the hostages was like “standing in line at the supermarket, it doesn’t matter how many shop assistants there are, sometimes it’s impossible to deal with everyone.”

In a statement to the press today, Shelley says, “I never in any way intended to say that the partygoers contributed to the results of the tragic event. The youngsters who were celebrating, including my beloved cousin Lori who was murdered, celebrate like the people of Israel should do on their festivals.”

He explains, “Because of the large number of those murdered, the difficulty in getting to the bodies during the fighting, and the large amount of time needed to collect the bodies and the difficult identification process due to their condition, we had to establish a special system, bring in professionals, and pass a cabinet resolution for identification through the biometric database. All these are actions that take time.”