Nova survivor who lost wife on Oct. 7 goes home after almost 400 days in hospital
Nati Ganon, 40, who was shot by Hamas terrorists during brutal rampage at music festival over a year ago, says his ‘greatest victory’ is returning home to raise his 3 kids
A father of three from Bat Yam who was seriously wounded when Hamas terrorists stormed the Nova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im on October 7, 2023, was released from the hospital on Monday after over a year of medical treatment.
Hospital staff at Tel Aviv’s Ichilov lined the calls cheering and ringing bells to bid farewell to Nati Ganon, 40, as he was discharged, though the celebration was bittersweet — his wife Shiran was murdered during the onslaught at the outdoor rave.
“The hospital staff is all heart,” Ganon was quoted as saying by the Ynet news site. “What I’ve been through isn’t normal… It’s something that the brain can’t process.”
He said that he had two psychological breakdowns during his rehabilitation period, during which he “didn’t get up for treatments, stayed with the blanket up to [my] neck, and didn’t want to talk to anyone,” Ynet reported.
“My journey doesn’t end here,” he was quoted as saying. “My greatest victory is firstly to return home to raise my children, and the dream is to return to be able to go back to the profession that I love — hairdressing.”
In the weeks after the brutal massacre, Ganon told the Kan public broadcaster that he and Shiran had tried to flee the festival in their car, which got stuck, and they jumped into another vehicle, which came under gunfire. Nati was shot in the leg, and so was Shiran, he recalled.
"When the attack began, we fled in a car and were shot at. They shot me, and I lay on the ground bleeding for five hours, realizing that the situation wasn’t good. Only after I arrived at the hospital did I understand that I was injured in the back — the bullet pierced my back… pic.twitter.com/mCmvOOLpr6
— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) November 5, 2024
They tried to jump out of the car, but Nati was unable to run and told Shiran to keep going. That was the last time he saw her.
“I was shot and lay in a field for five hours, bleeding,” Ynet quoted him as saying. “I knew it wasn’t good, but it was only after I arrived at the hospital that I realized I was injured in the back — the bullet had missed my spine by millimeters.”
Ganon was eventually rescued, evacuated and hospitalized.
Shiran was considered missing for close to a week until her body was found and brought for burial in Holon on October 15. She is survived by Nati and their three children, Ilay, 15, Ori, 11 and Mai, 8, as well as her father, Betzalel, and her siblings.
Over 360 people were murdered and 40 kidnapped at the Nova party on October 7, 2023, when some 3,000 Hamas-led terrorists burst across the border from Gaza by land, air and sea, killing a total of some 1,200 people in southern Israel and seizing 251 hostages amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
