In the morning of Monday, October 9, the gruesome Israeli death toll from the Hamas attack rose again, from 600 to 700, after a more precise update of the number of victims of a massacre at a techno festival held near Gaza on Friday night. The Israeli rescue service ZAKA claims to have removed 260 bodies from the scene. This figure could rise further.
Unauthorized festivals like this are relatively common in remote areas of Israel. Judging by the videos, this one attracted at least several hundred revelers, and has a relatively well-known organizer, Nova. The young festival-goers had taken advantage of the long weekend marking the end of the Sukkot religious holidays to gather near Kibbutz Re'im, a small settlement less than 6 kilometers from the enclave's border, opposite the Palestinian refugee camp of Bureij.
It's a sandy, undulating landscape, where Gazans gaze enviously over the wall at neatly-arranged crop fields and small woods of eucalyptus. To the west, in a straight line, lies one of the most fragile points of the Israeli "security border," where young Gazans from nearby neighborhoods regularly cross the wire fences as a borderline suicidal, high-risk sport. In September, Hamas organized demonstrations there for the first time in almost two years.
Revelers were still up at dawn, around a vast area covered with colorful pink and purple tents, illuminated with lanterns and garlands, under a giant Buddha. Initial rocket fire, launched by Hamas shortly after dawn prayers, caused confusion. In one of the videos posted online by Noam, a reveler who managed to escape, a man can be heard asking: "Is it the police coming to dislodge [them], or is it rocket fire?"
The organizers announce a red alert over the microphone. The revellers were slow to understand. Survivors told the Israeli press that Hamas militiamen appeared from several directions, spreading panic. Dozens of young Israelis fled across a plain, pursued by fighters on motorcycles. Others ran towards the cleared woods in the hope of finding shelter. Hamas men, meanwhile, fired on sight, and appears to have taken hostages.
Later, police officers were able to reach some of the people hiding in the woods. But witnesses said they waited for hours for the army to come to their aid. The naked, lifeless body of a young woman with tattooed legs, brought back to Gaza in a pick-up truck, circulated on social media.
One of the festival-goers, Noam, managed to get to his car on the road and film the roadside, littered with burnt-out, destroyed cars. Those who managed to escape soon discovered that the entire region had become a war zone, where Hamas was circulating freely, blocking roads and shooting on sight. Since Saturday, social media in Israel has been overflowing with messages from missing people's relatives, along with photos and telephone numbers. On Monday morning, Hamas raided a kibbutz a few kilometers north of the rave site. Fighting was ongoing across the region.
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.