Pain, determination and survivor guilt at Nova massacre site, a year after atrocity
Thousands honor the victims of the Hamas onslaught at the location of the outdoor rave, as relatives say they must tell their loved ones’ stories
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
RE’IM — The site of the Nova festival massacre of October 7 hosted a festival of remembrance on Monday, as thousands of Israelis, including survivors of the atrocity, family members of victims, and a myriad of others came to honor those murdered here a year ago.
Relatives of the slaughtered spoke of ongoing pain and loss, but also of determination to keep alive the memory of their loved ones and tell the story of how they were killed in cold blood by Hamas terrorists at a festival overflowing with love and kindness.
And survivors of the savage attack remembered the friends who died alongside them and recalled their terrifying experiences as they sought any possible way to escape the onslaught.
Two ceremonies were held at the site of the Nova festival Monday morning, one at 6:25 a.m. attended by President Isaac Herzog and other dignitaries. A second was held at 11:47 next to a large yellow container at the site where over a dozen people hid to escape the attack but were discovered by a lone terrorist and murdered in cold blood in a hail of bullets at that exact time.
Only four of those hiding in the container survived the attack, one of whom, Gilad Maman, lowered a flag to half-staff at the beginning of the ceremony.
Amid the Hamas invasion of October 7, large numbers of terrorists descended on the Nova festival and massacred 364 revelers, according to Israeli authorities. The terrorists injured many more at the site, raped women and committed other atrocities. Some 40 people at the festival were taken hostage to Gaza.
“Life will never be the same again. There is a hole in my heart for the rest of my life,” said Chagit Lavi, whose son Omri Lavi was one of those murdered trying to flee the area.
Hagit said her son had been with a childhood friend on Route 232 trying to escape and that was the last time she spoke with him. At 7:08, he told her they were trying to find a safe route out but had encountered blocked roads and other problems.
Although Hagit does not know exactly what happened to Omri and his friend, she said they were shot from behind and killed some 10 minutes after that conversation.
Hagit and her family were informed of Omri’s fate five days later after his body was identified.
“This is a very difficult day emotionally, for the family, for the whole country. We have been living in a war for an entire year,” she said, adding that since they live in the northern city of Safed, they had not even been able to hold a one-year memorial service for Omri on the Jewish calendar date of his death because of rocket fire from Lebanon.
A forest of faces
The site of the Nova outdoor music festival is close to Kibbutz Re’im, east of central Gaza. Over the last year, it has been transformed into a beautiful yet eerie and devastatingly sad memorial for the victims of the attack.
The faces of hundreds of young men and women appear all over the forested area where the festival was staged, in small shrines erected in the sands, on bumper stickers stuck to rocket shelters, and on large posters and information boards comprising an exhibition of those who were murdered.
Many of these displays include the last words they exchanged with their loved ones in messages as they sought to flee or hide from the brutal terrorist onslaught that would eventually overtake them.
Alongside the forest of shrines is a carpet of ceramic poppies commemorating the hundreds of victims, while in a tent next to it religious scribes continue their diligent work writing a Torah scroll for the merit of those killed. They request that visitors hold their hand as they write out the holy text.
Amid the visitors on the October 7 anniversary were social workers from the Safe Heart organization, which provides psychological support to survivors of the attack and their relatives.
Thousands wound their way through the shrines and exhibits on Monday, with hundreds attending the ceremonies and listening to the sometimes mournful, sometimes uplifting musical performances played in tribute to the victims.
Jarringly, IDF artillery guns nearby fired at regular intervals throughout the day, their thundering booms a reminder that the war begun by the terrible October 7 attack is still in full force in Gaza.
Survivor’s guilt
Ronit Levy, a survivor of the massacre, was visiting the site for the second time, but she said she felt numb and wasn’t experiencing any great emotion coming to the place where she almost met her death.
“I feel frozen, I can’t explain why, I’m numb,” she told The Times of Israel, anxiously playing with a necklace around her neck.
“There are such strong feelings, sadness, pain, I can’t deal with them… it closes off your soul, so to deal with it I think I’ve put up a wall. I am disconnected, I can’t feel,” she said.
At the same time, Levy said, she has feelings of guilt for having survived the attack, saying that on the one hand, she is happy for what she called the “miracle” in which she was able to escape, but on the other, she feels a need to apologize to those who were killed.
Levy, together with two other people, was able to flee the scene of the massacre in a car after driving around off-road for two hours looking for an exit. Bullets fired by terrorists struck the ground just meters away at one point, but eventually, they found a way to escape and ended up in the southern city of Yeruham.
“It was like Russian roulette… I went one way and survived, others went a different way and were murdered… You feel a need to apologize, there is a feeling of guilt,” said Levy.
Participating in the ceremony at the shipping container was Michal Bitton, whose daughter Maya Bitton was murdered there together with her fiance Eliran.
“This is a very strong day, a very emotional day, especially this ceremony next to the container where our children were murdered,” said Michal. “Their dreams ended here, and they had a lot of dreams. This container is where it ended.”
Michal was in constant touch with Maya for the hours she, together with Eliran and around a dozen others, were hiding from the terrorists.
Speaking with barely imaginable composure, Michal entered the container — now returned to the site after having been taken away — and stood at the exact spot where her daughter had taken shelter, with a picture of Maya hiding in the container stuck to the wall as part of the exhibit.
“We told her to think of good things, we told her that the army was strong and would be coming to save them any moment. They didn’t come, obviously,” said Michal.
“She was asking why no one was coming. I said, ‘They’re coming, just a little while longer.’”
Maya and Eliran were murdered by the terrorist, with Maya wrapped in Eliran’s arms as he sought to protect her.
Asked how she could speak with such calm at the very spot where her daughter was murdered, Michal said simply that she felt it was her duty and mission to tell Maya’s story as best she could.
“This is the place where our children came to love and participate in a festival of peace and love,” she said.
“So we’re not sitting at home and thinking how wretched we are,” she said. “We are wretched either way, but so many people have come here who are not connected [to the massacre] to wrap us in their embrace. This is very important.”
