Thread by @AGHamilton29

The accounts coming out from the music festival are horrific. They need to be shared. The world needs to know the evil that innocent people faced this weekend.

Here is one account from one of the survivors May Hayat (part 1/2):

So I went to work with my girlfriend Liron at the bar in the Nova’s party, the whole night and morning we were together. We had so much fun.

There was a beautiful sunrise and we went towards our trailer to drink coffee and rest. Then the nightmare began- rockets started flying over our heads.

The music was stopped and we waited for the situation to calm down so we could go home. Suddenly I get a phone call from a friend who says that she and everyone who’s started driving back home from the party is being shot.

I ran to the police officers closest to me to ask them to go and reinforce the people in the vehicles, but then we realized that there’s so many terrorists in our area and they are very close to us. There was one big chaos.

We went to hide in the police command room and we all sat down on the floor. Some people cried, some shouted, some had anxiety attacks and some were completely silent.

I hugged everyone who cried and couldn’t catch their breath, and Liron helped the wounded while we were under attack.

The noise of the gunshots began to get closer, the policemen stood in the doorway ready with their weapons and looked at each other with a frightened look and shouted to “storm!”.

They turned to us just before leaving the room and told us to “run and pray.” They came out and got shot one after the other. The terrorists fired bursts of gunfire at the room and for a moment there was shocking silence. We left the room running to the battlefield, and while I’m running I turned back and I saw Liron. She stayed there and didn’t come with us.

We tried our best and ran as fast as possible until we reached some ambulance and hid behind it. The shots came from every direction. To our right, to our left, behind and in front of us.

I saw someone yelling at us, “Come here, it’s safer.” I ran towards him, no one came with me. Me and him continued running together until we saw a vehicle approaching us. It was one of the party members who offered us to get into his car and try to escape with him.

We got on his car and as soon as he started driving the terrorist started shooting at us. We made a U-turn and drove to the other way and we were shooted there as well. We returned back to the place we were at the beginning and suddenly the car’s wheel got stuck in the sand while we are still under fire.

We ran out of the car until we noticed a hole in the ground. We entered inside, held hands and prayed. It was just the two of us, the guy who was driving the car disappeared.

I told him ‘Do you know the stories of the Holocaust in which people pretended to be dead so they wouldn’t be noticed? This is what gonna happen to us. He covered us with sand and we were in silence for about an hour until we started hearing footsteps coming towards us and we prayed for a miracle.

They found us. 8 terrorists in front of both of us. I closed my eyes tightly because I was sure they gonna shot us but then they grabbed us and lofted us from the ground. They took our phones and everything we had in our pockets. They announced in their walkie-talkie, ‘We have 2 more abductees.”

One of the terrorists started talking to me in Arabic and I told him I can’t understand him. I didn’t shout, I didn’t went crazy, I became apathetic. He put his jacket on me while the rest of them was looking at me like I was a piece of meat because I was wearing a tank top. In one hand he holds my hand, and in the other hand he holds a missile.

We started walking and I saw that they were looking on the floor for things like cigarettes and drinks. So I helped them. I didn’t want to resist.

Part 2/2:

The guy who was with me didn’t stop crying and begging for his life. I tried to explain to him that he needs to stop crying, “It annoys them, stop crying and everything will be fine.” They had knives and hammers. I realized we were in danger.

At first he listened to me but very quickly he returned to his initial and fell on his knees and again screamed and begged for his life. And then - he didn’t scream anymore. They murdered him in front of my eyes. I was left alone with them.

One of them took a board and every few seconds hit me on the head. The other one was holding a knife and every few seconds approached me threateningly. It was important for them to humiliate me.

The terrorist who held my hand shouted at them and “took me under his wing.” We started walking towards one of their cards and luckily their cars didn’t start. The threatening terrorist with the knife, the one who a moment ago murdered the guy who was with me, said to me “If you try to escape I’ll kill you like I killed your friend.”

I remained standing and the terrorist who “took me under his wing” told me I can go. I didn’t know what to do and in one moment I just started running. I stole a glance back and saw that no weapon was pointed at me so I continued to run like crazy.

I hid under the stage of the party and laid down next to 3 dead people. I smeared myself with the blood that dripped from one of the bodies next to me and pretended to be dead for 3 hours.

3 hours that felt like an eternity. 3 hours where terrorists pass by me and shoot everywhere and burn every possible piece of land, while rockets float above my head. For 3 hours I lie among corpses and wonder what will happen to me.

And suddenly I started hearing people talk in Hebrew. I screamed loudly “HELP!”. These were the army soldiers, they came and took me to a trailer with paramedics, along with other survivors. In the background, the shooting continued, and in front of my eyes I saw difficult sights that I will spare you and will not describe here.

So it’s true that they murdered my soul and I hope that one day I will be able to heal it. But Liron, remember Liron from the beginning go the story? My girlfriend. They killed her. They killed are my hero and unfortunately no one will ever be able to bring her back.”