Daylight was on the horizon and the music was still loud at the Supernova rave festival in southern Israel. People were smiling. Videos taken by those attending captured the scene. At around 6 am, in the distance, plumes of smoke appeared in the sky. Rockets that were fired from the Gaza Strip were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome, its anti-aircraft system. It was Saturday, October 7, and Hamas had just launched "Operation Al-Aqsa Flood," a large-scale attack against Israel.

Surrounded by fields and trees, the site of the rave was far away from residential areas. Between the two kibbutz of Be'eri, to the north, and Re'im, to the south, people danced less than 6 kilometers from the Palestinian enclave of Gaza. Some 3,500 people had been gathered that day.

While the first rockets were intercepted far up in the sky, the DJs continued playing. But confusion quickly set in. Videos authenticated and analyzed by Le Monde show security and police officers passing among the rave-goers. They are ordered to leave the premises immediately. The instructions are also broadcast over loudspeakers. Some did not immediately understand the situation and asked why they were being asked to leave.

Around 9 am, the first set of Palestinian fighters approached the venue. According to eyewitness accounts, there were dozens of them. The security force members present, barely a dozen, according to the images analyzed by Le Monde, were not equipped to deal with them. They wore neither bulletproof vests nor helmets – they just had handguns.

They did, however, attempt to set up a roadblock on Route 232 a few dozen meters north of the entrance to the event. They were then joined by an Israeli Merkava tank. Equipped with a powerful 120 mm cannon, this tank was of no use at the time, except as a refuge thanks to its armored plating. Dozens of participants took cover behind it, along with some of the police. Bullets rattled. The assailants were there.

Hamas commandos burst out from all sides, according to testimonies gathered by the Israeli press and Le Monde. They targeted those at the rave, firing into the crowd with automatic weapons.

A car dashcam recorded part of the scene from the festival's parking lot. The moment, verified by Le Monde, shows a Hamas militiaman, armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, capturing one of the participants of the rave. Covered in blood but alive, the hostage emerged from behind the camera with his hands on his head.

Seconds later, another attacker, armed with an assault rifle, appeared on the right-hand side of the screen, running towards the rear of a car. A man was lying there, presumably wounded. The attacker shot him at point-blank range. The recording shows the time as 9:23 am.

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