A helicopter gunship fired into the close to distance in Gaza and a cloud of black smoke started to rise as I walked alongside the highway that results in the scene of the worst terror assault in Israeli historical past.
An out of doors get together – a competition, a rave, name it what you want – however just some hundred metres from the place I used to be standing, the Israeli defence forces are nonetheless attempting to establish and take away the our bodies of over 250 younger women and men killed in a bloodthirsty orgy of violence by Hamas killers.
On that feeder highway, the our bodies of the Hamas gunmen nonetheless lay the place they have been killed.
Some lay subsequent to broken autos slewed into ditches, or in fields the place they have been shot by Israeli troopers.
The bloodbath on the Supernova dance music competition close to Re’im will go down in Israeli historical past because the second this nation realised it was not invincible.
In a wise house in Tel Aviv, I met two survivors of the bloodbath, Hai Cohen and Noam Kenner.
They’re clearly in shock, holding again tears as they inform me how the assault unfolded.
“Around 6.30 in the morning for the first time we started to see rockets over our heads, and then after a few seconds, or maybe minutes, the police stopped the music and alert us that there is a siren and it’s a real thing,” 31-year-old Hai defined.
At first, the chums thought the preliminary sirens and rockets have been simply a part of the same old bombardments they’ve come to reside with, and even took just a few selfies to ship to their family and friends whereas they hunkered down.
When they realised this assault was one thing way more critical, they ran for Hai’s automotive and tried to depart.
He defined how they drove for his or her lives.
Hai stated: “When the shooting starts, I directly push the gas and then go to the field that was on there on the right to me, I proceeded to push the 4×4 button and I started driving.
“I used to be listening to the taking pictures, they hit the automotive, and we noticed their jeeps and their bikes of Hamas pushing younger youngsters below impact of medication and alcohol… no heroic state of affairs, they simply butchered them.”
Noam, 22, says the automotive park for the Supernova competition was filled with vehicles, and that there was an enormous visitors jam of individuals attempting to get out.
“It’s because a lot of people have been in the party and a lot of people come with cars, so yeah, you’re stuck in there, you have a big road of cars that are waiting to go to the exit, but they stay in one place, they’re not moving,” she stated.
Hai decided that possible saved their lives – as a substitute of ready within the visitors jam, they determined it was finest to drive throughout the fields in the wrong way to the place they thought the taking pictures was coming from.
Dodging bullets and driving wildly off-road via a discipline, they managed to choose up three individuals who had escaped kibbutz Re’im.
“I really heard the [bullets] whistle, I think it’s the most terrifying thing I’ve been through because it’s really next to you, you know you can feel it,” Noam defined.
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“But you don’t have time to think, you just react to it,” Hai provides.
“After a few metres – something like 200, 300 metres – we succeeded in going to the main road, and at our right it’s the Gaza Strip, and the military base they were attacking.
“We did not know which manner they have been attacking, and to our left this was the butchering that you just noticed in movies.”
After a frantic drive, a change of tyre, and a drive through a fruit field with Noam navigating on Google Maps to make sure they didn’t drive into Gaza, Hai managed to drive himself, Noam and the others they rescued to safety.
Many of those that stayed within the visitors jam within the automotive park have been killed or taken hostage.
And when Noam thinks about what occurred, she realises how shut she got here to being one among them.
“When I remember, I realised that in the other road – the left road, that was traffic in trying to exit – the terrorists just come with the gun and shoot everybody in those cars.
“And I do not forget that I [wanted] to go on this highway, as a result of I believed it is the way in which out,” she said, becoming emotional as she spoke.
Both Hai and Noam are still wearing their blue festival wristbands – Hai says it’s because he wants to remember what happened.
Noam continues to be coming to phrases with how a enjoyable competition, attended by individuals from everywhere in the world, became Israel’s deadliest terror assault.
She stated: “Nobody realised what was happening, nobody realised that it’s going to be this huge situation.
“Nobody realised a terrorist was going to come back and kill lots of people – harmless those that simply need to be with their mates, be joyful and go to the get together.”
Source: information.sky.com”