Nova music festival massacre

• 1. Introduction

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  The Nova music festival massacre struck a desert dance party in the western Negev on the 7th of October 2023, in the early morning hours. A memorial exhibition would later take its name, 6:29, from the minute the music stopped as sirens warned of incoming rockets. Within a few hours, a trance festival had become the scene of the largest terror attack in Israel's history. It was also the worst massacre of Israeli civilians the country has known.

  This documentary asks how a celebration of music near the Gaza border turned so deadly. Who had approved the gathering, and who knew it was there? Why did so many people who tried to flee never get away? Why did help take so long to arrive? And what became of the people who were taken away, and of those who lived?

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• 2. A Festival Approved

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  Supernova Sukkot Gathering began on the 6th of October 2023 as a weekend-long outdoor trance music festival. It was produced by an organizer called Nova, also known as Tribe of Nova. The event served as the Israeli edition of Universo Paralello, a psychedelic trance festival launched 23 years earlier in Bahia, Brazil. The site sat in the western Negev desert, roughly 5 km from the Gaza-Israel barrier and near kibbutz Re'im. Organizers had moved to this spot only two days before, after the original location in southern Israel fell through.

  The dates were timed to two Jewish holidays, the final day of Sukkot on the 6th of October and Simchat Torah on the 7th. Promoters billed the rave as a celebration of "friends, love and infinite freedom". Artists well known in the psychedelic trance scene, including Astral Projection and Man with No Name, filled the line-up. The grounds held three stages, a camping zone, and an area with a bar and food. Attendees described a crowd mostly aged 20-40, drawn from across Israel. Security guards and police were present, and reported attendance was 3,500, though figures vary.

  The paper trail behind the party began on the 6th of September, when a production company asked police for permission to hold a festival called Unity in the area on the 5th and the 6th of October. Police authorized it on the 20th of September without first consulting the military. The Northern Brigade of the IDF's Gaza Division, which was responsible for defending the area, received a request the next day. On the 29th of September the brigade commander, Colonel Haim Cohen, approved the event, judging that air defenses in the area could protect it.

  On the 2nd of October, a Home Front Command officer and an assistant to the head of the production company's security team toured the site. During that tour came a request to stretch the event by 24 hours, so Nova could use the same equipment and infrastructure. Military officials were at first reluctant, because fewer troops would be deployed over the Simchat Torah weekend. After further talks on the 4th of October between the Northern Brigade and Southern Command, Nova was approved to run from the 6th to the 7th of October.

  On the 5th of October, the Northern Brigade's chief of operations mentioned the festival during a discussion. The deputy commander of the 13th Battalion of the Golani Brigade, the unit then responsible for the area, was present but did not pass the information to soldiers on the ground. The IDF's own investigation, released in April 2025, found that the military made no assessment of the event and no change to its defenses. Soldiers along the border did not know the festival was happening, and the military had no representative on the grounds. On the night of the 6th-the 7th of October, officials debated signs of Hamas activity that they ultimately misread. Nova never came up.

  According to Haaretz, the Shin Bet and military commanders discussed a possible threat to the festival just hours before the attack. No warning reached the organizers.

  Israeli security services judged it unlikely that Hamas knew about the festival in advance. Reports published on the 17th of November said interrogations of detained Palestinians pointed to a chance discovery that the attackers then chose to exploit. Officials noted that the third day had been approved only just before the festival began. Militants also entered the site from the side opposite the Gaza border. Senior officials speculated that drones, or operatives paragliding into Israel, may have spotted the crowd and relayed its location. Maps recovered from Hamas militants did not show the festival at all.

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• 3. Flight Along Route 232

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  Rockets filled the sky around 6:30 a.m., near sunrise, as the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, opened a surprise attack from the Gaza Strip. The barrage gave cover to infiltrators. Militants blasted through the border fence in many places, and some of the gunmen who struck the festival arrived on motorized paragliders.

  At 6:35 a.m., Deputy Superintendent Nivi Ohana of the Ofakim police station, the senior police commander on duty at the festival, noticed the unusually heavy rocket fire. He decided to close the event and evacuate it. That decision is credited with saving hundreds of lives. Ohana asked for more security, and backup arrived, including a team from the Yasam riot control unit. He and members of the production team urged people to disperse over loudspeakers. By 7:00 a.m. he had left to defend his own city, which was also under attack.

  Police steered the departing crowd onto Route 232. At 7:13 a.m., the Home Front Command officer at the Gaza Division's Northern Brigade received an inaccurate update. It said some 90% of partygoers had left, and it mentioned reports of gunfire. He passed it on, and the division wrongly understood that the party had largely dispersed.

  Along the highway, police directing traffic noticed that many people were coming back after being shot at. Those who fled north were fired on near Alumim, Be'eri and Sa'ad. Those who turned south met militants who had captured junctions along the road. Gunmen in military attire, riding motorcycles and trucks, fired on people trying to escape. Those who reached the road and the parking area were trapped in a traffic jam while militants shot at vehicles. Some wounded people crouching on the ground were killed at point-blank range.

  Once police understood what was happening on the evacuation routes, they opened a dirt path leading east. Thousands escaped along it through agricultural fields toward Patish, some by car and some on foot. Dozens of vehicles were left behind on Route 232 and on the festival grounds.

  Roadside bomb shelters offered cover, but several became death traps and came to be known as the Death Shelters. Aner Shapira is credited with helping protect the one where he sat. When militants threw grenades inside, he threw several back before a grenade killed him. Hersh Goldberg-Polin, seriously wounded, was abducted from the same shelter.

  By 8:00 a.m., about 90% of the partygoers had left the grounds. Only police officers, event staff, and a few partygoers who judged the grounds safer than the roads remained behind.

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• 4. Tank at the Roadblock

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  At about 8:00 a.m., a force of 110 Hamas fighters on 14 pickup trucks and two motorcycles crossed into Israel from Nuseirat. The 1st and 3rd companies of Hamas's Nuseirat Battalion carried out the festival massacre, and their original target was the city of Netivot. A militant outside Be'eri signaled the force to continue along Route 232. Instead, the column got lost near Shokeda and turned south toward the festival grounds. On the way, it stopped at a bomb shelter near Be'eri and murdered several people sheltering there, including partygoers who had fled the festival.

  At 8:12 a.m., the militants spotted a police roadblock near the festival, and officers armed only with pistols returned fire. At 8:14 a.m., an RPG struck an abandoned vehicle, wounding several officers and partygoers nearby. Dozens of people who had gathered beside the officers ran back into the grounds or east through the fields. Those inside hid in bushes, portable toilets and dumpsters, and staff crouched under the drink bars. An ambulance drove from the entrance into the grounds, and 20 people took cover in and around it.

  At 8:20 a.m., an IDF tank from the Paga military outpost reached the fighting after enduring heavy fire. Two of its crew were dead. Sergeant Ofir Testa was seriously wounded, and only the driver, Corporal Ido Somech, could still fight. Seeing the tank, the militants halted and shot at it with RPGs and gunfire. Testa climbed out despite his injuries and handed his assault rifle to an unarmed festival security guard. Gunfire killed him as he turned back toward the tank.

  The militants tried to climb onto the tank while Somech shot at them and killed one. He then drove away, running over several abandoned vehicles and militants as he went, and parked beside the highway. Some fleeing partygoers and police officers used the tank for cover as they ran south along Route 232.

  About 30 partygoers sheltered behind the tank, defended by two brothers, Daniel and Neria Sharabi, both IDF infantry veterans. They climbed inside, took a gun from a dead soldier along with the tank's machine gun, and fended off attackers. They also tied improvised tourniquets on wounded partygoers. Yoni Skrisewsky, a commander of Daniel's reserve company, advised them over WhatsApp.

  The militants kept advancing and set abandoned cars on fire. The tank and those around it pulled back south. Surviving police and security guards kept fighting around it, but they could no longer hold the road to the festival grounds.

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• 5. Inside the Grounds

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  At 8:50 a.m., the militants spotted partygoers fleeing east along the dirt path and opened fire. Between 9:00 and 9:10 a.m., they abducted seven hostages who had been hiding at the roadside. At 9:15 a.m., Major Avraham Hovelashvili, deputy commander of the IDF's Caracal Battalion, was killed near the grounds. He had met a group of militants while heading to join his unit in the Sufa area. Shortly afterward, the militants' commander ordered his forces onto the festival grounds.

  Dozens of fighters raided the grounds and set up a command post. They killed most of the civilians they met and took others hostage. One attendee said about 50 gunmen arrived in vans after the electricity was cut and fired in every direction. The open terrain offered few places to hide. Many people who sheltered among the trees were shot methodically, while others in bushes and orchards survived. An RPG hit the ambulance that had sheltered 20 people, and 18 of them died.

  Many attendees phoned and sent WhatsApp messages begging for help. It took hours for emergency responders and the military to reach the grounds.

  Reports from the Dinah Project, the Association of the Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, and the Civil Commission on Oct 7th crimes document sexual violence at the festival, including rape, gang rape and mutilation. Independent newspaper investigations support them. Survivor and responder testimony says both women and men were raped. Haaretz police reporter Josh Breiner said ZAKA personnel found naked women with injuries. In July 2024, an anonymous male survivor identified as "D." described his rape on Israel's Channel 12, the first victim to do so.

  In Gaza City, Hamas members paraded the body of Shani Louk, a 22-year-old German-Israeli, on the back of a pickup truck. Video of it was among the first to go viral from the attack. Independently verified drone footage of the site showed dozens of scorched cars and skid marks.

  By 9:50 a.m., the militants had left the grounds and returned to the highway. On orders from their commanders in Gaza, they went on to Be'eri and joined the massacre there. At 10:20 a.m., dozens of Gazans unaffiliated with Hamas, some of them armed, reached the grounds and looted the bodies. Fighting still raged around the tank further south. Brigadier General Oren Solomon, a senior reservist officer, reported numerous militants in the area but did not know about the massacre. Soldiers of the Multidimensional Unit were sent, but fighting at Re'im held them back and they never reached the grounds.

  At 10:25 a.m., an Israeli Air Force attack helicopter spotted the Hamas convoy withdrawing along Route 232 toward Re'im. The crew did not know the festival existed and had no contact with ground troops. Fearing friendly fire, they decided not to shoot.

  The first reinforcements, troops from the Givati Brigade's Shaked Battalion, arrived at 11:35 a.m. The commander of the Ephraim Regional Brigade had sent them from the West Bank, after an off-duty Ephraim Brigade soldier among the partygoers called for help. At 11:50 a.m., they advanced onto the grounds and killed two attackers. Over the next hour, joined by operators of the Israel Prison Service's Metzada Unit, they killed some 15 more. Some belonged to the original wave and some to a second wave of infiltrators. Several attackers were taken alive. Additional forces arrived at 1:00 p.m., when the fighting had ceased, and they rescued survivors and treated the wounded. At 3:00 p.m., the site was declared cleared.

  A September 2024 investigation broadcast on Kan News found that Israeli Air Force commander Tomer Bar did not know about the massacre for 10 hours. The Air Force was at its lowest readiness, with two fighter jets and two helicopters available at short notice and one drone over Gaza. The jets that did scramble were sent for hours to guard strategic assets such as the Leviathan gas platform. The IDF's later investigation added that little to no coordination existed between the military and police in the area.

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• 6. The Count

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  ZAKA, Israel's volunteer community emergency response group, reported retrieving at least 260 bodies from the party grounds. Other paramedic organizations also responded, so the toll was expected to rise. On the 17th of November, officials announced 364 dead, including 17 police officers, and 40 abducted. The IDF investigation released in April 2025 set the final figures at 378 dead, of whom 344 were civilians, and 44 people taken hostage.

  The 34 security personnel included 16 soldiers, 12 of whom were off duty and attending the party. Another 16 were police officers, 15 of whom were killed fighting, and two were Shin Bet agents. Of all the victims, 171 were killed and 16 were abducted at the festival grounds and an adjacent stretch of highway. The rest were killed or abducted across the Gaza envelope, in an area spanning some 52 kilometers, as they tried to flee. No other massacre that day in the villages near Gaza matched this one, including those at Netiv HaAsara, Be'eri, Kfar Aza, Nir Oz and Holit.

  Nathanel Young, a British man serving in the Israeli military, was among the dead. So was Lior Asulin, a retired striker who had played for Hapoel Tel Aviv Football Club. Journalists Shai Regev of the newspaper Maariv and Ayelet Arnin of the public broadcaster Kan were killed too. So were the festival's organizers, the twins Osher Vaknin and Michael Vaknin.

  Danielle Waldman, the youngest daughter of Israeli billionaire businessman Eyal Waldman, was killed along with her boyfriend Noam Shai. When her father learned she was missing, he flew back from Indonesia and tracked her location through her Apple Watch. Her body was found on the 9th of October.

  Suhaib Abu Amer Razeem, a 22-year-old Palestinian from East Jerusalem, was at the site working as a bus driver for festival attendees. Militants questioned him about his ethnicity and why he was there. At least one of them proposed letting him go because he was an Arab. Instead, they kidnapped him and used him as a translator during a hostage standoff at kibbutz Be'eri. Using the hostages as human shields, they threatened to execute them if the IDF attacked.

  Razeem was one of 14 of the 15 hostages who did not survive the standoff. His body went undiscovered for 12 days, and it is still unknown whether the Hamas hostage takers or IDF gunfire killed him. He was buried in Jerusalem. His brother claimed that when he reported him missing, an officer told him to "go to Hamas and ask them to bring back your brother".

  Two other people, Yasmin Porat and her boyfriend Tal Katz, escaped the festival to Be'eri before being taken hostage there. Porat survived and Katz did not. Because they had escaped the festival, they are not counted among its hostages.

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• 7. The Hostages

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  Among those seized at the festival were Mia Schem, a 21-year-old French-Israeli woman, and Noa Argamani, who was 25. Three dual Brazilian-Israeli attendees were also reported missing. Videos on social media showed some of them being seized. In Gaza, some were filmed for Hamas propaganda videos, while relatives and friends searched for any news.

  Within three days of the attack, the German Public Prosecutor General announced an investigation into the kidnapping and murder of German victims. Over two dozen of the 251 hostages taken into Gaza that day held dual Israeli-German citizenship or were eligible for German citizenship through descent. Applications for eligible people were fast-tracked. Dual citizens from the festival included Shani Louk, Rom Braslavski and Alon Ohel.

  Hamas released 21 of the festival's hostages. Maya Regev walked free on crutches on the 25th of November 2023, a gunshot wound to her foot keeping her in hospital until the 10th of June 2024. Her brother Itay Regev was freed on the 29th of November, the same day as Moran Stella Yanai. Mia Schem followed on the 30th of November.

  Roni Krivoi, a dual Israeli-Russian citizen, was released on the 26th of November 2023 as a gesture towards Vladimir Putin. He later said he escaped during captivity when the apartment building holding him collapsed in Israeli air raids. After four days trying to reach Israel, local residents beat him and handed him back to Hamas.

  Romi Gonen was released on the 19th of January 2025, and Or Levy on the 8th of February. Omer Shem Tov, Eliya Cohen and Omer Wenkert were freed on the 22nd of February. On the 13th of October 2025, eleven more were released as part of the first phase of the Gaza peace plan. They were Elkana Bohbot, Rom Braslavski, Evyatar David, Guy Gilboa-Dalal, Maxim Herkin, Segev Kalfon, Bar Kupershtein, Eitan Mor, Yosef Chaim Ohana, Alon Ohel and Avinatan Or. Or is the boyfriend of Noa Argamani.

  On the 8th of June 2024, the Yamam, Shin Bet and IDF carried out a rescue operation in the Nuseirat refugee camp. It freed four hostages from the festival, including Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan and Andrey Kozlov. The operation was later renamed Operation Arnon, in honor of a Yamam officer killed in the line of duty during it.

  The Israel Defense Forces recovered the bodies of 15 people kidnapped from the festival. Unless noted otherwise, they are believed to have been murdered during the kidnapping, with their bodies then taken. Ofir Tsarfati's body was recovered on the 1st of December 2023, and Eden Zacharia's on the 12th. Elia Toledano's followed on the 15th. He was the boyfriend of Mia Schem, and he is believed to have been killed on the 10th of November 2023 by an Israeli airstrike targeting the Hamas commander Ahmed Ghandour.

  On the 17th of May 2024, the bodies of Shani Louk, Amit Buskila and Itzhak Gelerenter were recovered. On the 24th of May came Orión Hernández Radoux, a French-Mexican national and the boyfriend of Shani Louk, and Hanan Yablonka. Radoux's body was flown to Mexico for burial. On the 31st of August, five more were recovered: Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Eden Yerushalmi. Yonatan Samerano, who had fled the festival and was killed in Be'eri, was recovered on the 22nd of June 2025, and Idan Shtavi on the 29th of August.

  Hamas returned three more bodies after the peace plan took effect. Guy Illouz came back on the 13th of October 2025. A previously released hostage said she was treated next to him in a Gaza hospital, so he is known to have been taken alive. Uriel Baruch's body was returned the next day, and the IDF determined he was murdered on the day of the massacre. Inbar Haiman came back on the 15th of October. She had been abducted alive and appeared in a video that Hamas posted to Telegram, surrounded by her captors. On the 22nd of June 2025, she had become the last female hostage from the attacks still held by Hamas.

  The last living hostage was released on the 13th of October 2025, and two days later the body of the last hostage was returned.

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• 8. Aftermath and Memory

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  On the 10th of October, Mousa Abu Marzook of Hamas's political wing suggested in an interview that its fighters may have mistaken the festival attendees for off-duty IDF soldiers. Hamas had first denied that the massacre or any killing of civilians happened. It later claimed it never targeted civilians and that independent groups of Gazan civilians may have carried it out after Hamas defeated Israeli forces in the region.

  On the 19th of November, the Palestinian Authority sent a statement to foreign ministries and the United Nations denying that Hamas conducted the massacre. It claimed Israeli helicopters bombed civilians after the Hannibal Directive was activated, though Israel says that directive was canceled in 2016. A US National Security Council spokesman said the Palestinian Authority later stated this was not its official position.

  Haaretz police reporter Josh Breiner quoted a police source saying an investigation indicated that an IDF helicopter firing on militants "apparently also hit some festival participants". Israeli police replied that their investigation focused on police activity, not the military's. They said the article had been used out of context on social media to blame Israel for civilian deaths, with no basis in fact. In September 2024, Australia's ABC News asked the IDF about a Haaretz article by Yaniv Kubovich reporting that the Hannibal Directive was apparently applied. The IDF did not answer, saying such questions would be looked into at a later stage. A widely shared video said to show a helicopter shooting at festival civilians was, according to France 24, part of a compilation of Israeli attacks in Gaza on the 9th of October.

  In response to the massacre and the other attacks Hamas called Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Israel formally declared war on Hamas and began the Gaza war, named Operation Swords of Iron. On the 8th of October, looters entered the festival site, which had been declared a closed military zone. They stole money, electronics and identification documents belonging to the victims. They were reportedly waved through a security checkpoint after one of them claimed to be a local resident.

  On the 1st of January 2024-42 survivors filed a lawsuit seeking 200 million NIS in damages from the IDF, the Shin Bet and the Israel Police. Family members of victims also formed the Party Youth Forum, which demands a third-party investigation committee to identify any negligence before the attacks. In December 2024, the parents of Yonatan Samerano sued UNRWA and its Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini, with the help of the NGO Shurat HaDin. The IDF had revealed that an UNRWA employee, Faisal Ali Mussalem al-Naami, took their son's body to Gaza.

  Spaces were created soon after the attack for survivors and victims' families to reflect and heal, with a variety of treatments for mental trauma. The National Insurance Institute formally recognised the trauma and damage suffered by survivors. Survivors can claim recognition as victims of work-related injuries and as casualties of hostile actions. That brings financial aid, medical and psychological assistance, legal representation, and compensation for property losses.

  At a State Audit Commission hearing in the Knesset in April 2024, a survivor described the psychological damage the attack had caused. He said many survivors had been forcibly hospitalized, and that some 50 survivors had died by suicide between October 2023 and April 2024. The Israeli Ministry of Health said it could not confirm that figure. Shirel Golan, a survivor, took her own life on the 20th of October 2024, her 22nd birthday, after PTSD symptoms since the event. Roei Shalev, who was injured and lost his partner and a friend, died by suicide on the 10th of October 2025. Singer Yuval Raphael, also a survivor, competed in the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 and finished in second place.

  In late January 2024, a memorial on the site opened to visitors, and families planted trees inside the festival area. Unclaimed items recovered from the grounds were brought to a similar event at kibbutz Sdot Yam. Burned and damaged cars from the festival have been gathered at the Car Wall in Tkuma.

  In December 2023, activists including the festival's producers staged an exhibition at Expo Tel Aviv that recreated the massacre site in detail. It was one of the first physical memorials of the attacks. It held a reconstructed dance floor, incinerated cars, bullet-ridden portable toilets, piles of personal items and tributes to the victims. Israeli President Isaac Herzog spoke at the opening on the 6th of December, and the exhibition ran for 10 weeks.

  Scooter Braun, Joe Teplow and Josh Kadden brought it to the United States. It opened in New York City in April 2024 and drew 113,000 visitors, including Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul. On the 10th of June 2024, protesters organized by Within Our Lifetime set off flares and flew Hamas and Hezbollah flags outside. Local and national politicians, including Adams and White House spokesperson Andrew Bates, condemned the protest. The exhibition, planned to close on the 23rd of May, was extended to the 22nd of June.

  The exhibition then opened in Culver City, near Los Angeles, on the 17th of August 2024, and drew 170,000 visitors. An abridged version ran in Philadelphia, and the full show opened in Miami on the 18th of December 2024. On the 16th of January 2025, Sara Netanyahu and Noa Argamani visited it there. A month later Argamani returned alongside special envoy Steve Witkoff, who pledged to keep working for the release of all remaining hostages. It opened in Toronto on the 23rd of April 2025, where Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney made a private visit on the 9th of June that brought him to tears. It moved to Washington, D.C. on the 14th of June.

  Film also carried the story. The documentary #Nova aired on Yes Docu on the 6th of December and recreated events from videos taken on site, phone recordings and WhatsApp conversations. Yes let any broadcaster show it for free and uploaded the full film to YouTube. Supernova: Music Festival Massacre, made by Yossi Bloch, Noam Pinchas and Duki Dror, was acquired by broadcasters in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Denmark and beyond. On the 26th of September 2024, the BBC, Paramount+ and Israel's Hot broadcast We Will Dance Again.

  Tributes came from music and sport. On the 9th of October, U2 performed "Pride (In the Name of Love)" with modified lyrics at a Las Vegas concert. Five Israeli DJs, including Skazi, played a set at a memorial on the festival site on the 28th of November 2023. The 66th Annual Grammy Awards paid tribute on the 5th of February 2024, with a string quartet of Israeli, Palestinian and Arab musicians. At the 2024 Paris Olympics, an Israeli sailing pair named their dinghy "Nova". On the 18th of November 2024, Sia dedicated a slow rendition of "Titanium" to survivors at an ADL-organized concert in Washington, D.C. In October 2025, a planned beachfront restaurant in Khan Yunis called "Nova Café" drew criticism for glorifying the massacre.

  Two moments from the exhibition stand out. In Culver City, a former hostage reclaimed a sweatshirt she had lost at the site. In Miami, the father of one of the victims found the shoes that he had given his son.

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