Reporter's Notebook: At the Nova Festival massacre site a year later

The roads to Gaza in the first hours of the morning are free of traffic. This time of night, when it is still dark and even the first light of dawn has not arrived, brings a quiet over the country that is rare. At the entrance to Ashkelon, there is a gas station with lights on inside. The light is inviting, the only sign of warmth in the darkness. On the morning of October 7, 2024, I stopped and grabbed a coffee and then headed south toward the border of Gaza.

A year ago I was asleep in Jerusalem at this time. I was awakened after eight in the morning when sirens sounded in Jerusalem due to Hamas rocket fire. However, by that time Israel was already under attack by thousands of terrorists and hundreds had already been massacred by Hamas. A year later, I decided to go to the Gaza border to the site of the Nova music festival, the worst site of massacres that day.

There was a commemoration taking place. I’ve been to the Nova festival site many times since October 7, once in the second week of the war when vehicles of the victims were still scattered in the fields, broken and abandoned. The clothes of people who ran from the terrorists, and who were killed, were stills strewn about. The armored shelters near the bus stops were still filled with dried blood.

Near the border of Gaza, at around five in the morning, there is already some activity. Several cars with bicycles on the back were driving around. There are a large number of people who like to ride bicycles off road in the area of the kibbutzim.

A number of bicyclists were murdered on the morning of October 7. They were caught out on the trails by Hamas and killed. Some of those venturing out this morning, a year later, were showing that Hamas could not take their pastime away from them.

Police checkpoints were hastily thrown up on the roads that parallel the Gaza border a year after the massacre. They were there to protect people and help direct traffic. There were many ceremonies being held near the border. For instance, some of the kibbutzim were holding their own commemorations. There are still more than 100 hostages held in Gaza; some of the kibbutzim are still missing members who are held in Gaza.

Route 232 leads to the site of the Nova festival massacre. It passes a number of kibbutzim, such as Be’eri and Alumim. Each of these places has a story from October 7. Be’eri and Kfar Aza were the site of terrible massacres. In other places such as Alumim and Mefalsim, most of the residents survived.

Road 232

THIS ROAD 232 was a death lane on October 7. That day, the terrorists massacred many drivers here. To drive the same route a year later is harrowing. People driving on this road at 6:30 a.m. would have had no idea that the first barrage of rockets was the opening salvo to a massacre. They might have stopped and taken shelter, only to be massacred. And if they continued on their way, they may have driven into the inferno.

Today, the war in Gaza can still be heard. The IDF’s 162nd Division is fighting in Jabalya. This is the third time the IDF has gone into this neighborhood near Gaza City to clear out Hamas. It shows how the terrorist group is returning to areas in Gaza. In fact, Hamas still controls most of Gaza despite a year of war. However, it has fewer rockets and poses less of a danger.

The site of the Nova festival massacre is contained in a square mile of land to the west of 232. There is a forest and sites where the festival’s concert took place. There are also commemorations that have been added over time. For instance there is a field of flowers, a field of saplings of trees that have placards for many of the victims, and a large open area with individual placards commemorating the victims.

Each one of these signs shows a photograph of a face and there is an area below the sign where people bring candles and flowers and other items. In the forest, there are more memorials, with benches and individual areas set aside for families to visit their fallen loved ones. It is a dignified and complex series of memorials.

Much of what is poignant and meaningful about the Nova festival massacre site is that it has not had the hand of government authorities come to standardize and ruin it. However, little by little, it is becoming more organized and a sense of foreboding doom of government authority and bureaucracy looms over it. For now though, it is still a place for the families, for the loved ones and for regular people from all walks of life to gather in their own unique ways.

Yesterday morning October 7, 2024 – the dirt roads near the site were full of dust as hundreds of cars arrived. After I arrived, I joined a long line of people ambling among the trees toward the site. It was still dark, so the figures arriving could only be made out slightly, and each had a ghostly appearance walking in the dust. Eventually, the dawn arrived and more people came in a long endless line, to walk among the images of the dead.

Silence punctuated by artillery 

THE SILENCE was punctuated by artillery fire in the distance. There was also the sound of machine-gun fire in Gaza, the “rat-tat” of disciplined fire that means it is the IDF. Overhead a drone flew, and two helicopters circled. The number of police, soldiers, and helicopters today was in contrast to a year ago when there were very few soldiers on the border to stop the Hamas attack. The police present near the festival were massacred, many of them trying in vain to defend the festival-goers by firing their sidearms at terrorists who arrived in pickup trucks armed with RPGs and AK-47 assault rifles.

The people who gathered just before sunrise on this October 7 came from all walks of life. There was a motorcycle club; soldiers and police came; young people and old arrived. A high-ranking officer in the reserves sat next to me; a woman prayed.

Many people came with the images of their fallen loved ones or friends emblazoned on their shirts. One shirt has a quote that says “life is only as good as your mindset” and another shows two people on it and says “Maya and Eliran Forever.” A group brought balloons with the names of the killed and attached them to benches.

The ceremony began after 6:30 a.m. There was a brief sequence of music played, the same music as was playing when the music stopped due to the rocket fire a year earlier. Then organizers gathered and there were short statements and one man played a guitar. President Isaac Herzog joined and walked among the crowds.

No other politicians were present. Other than the police who helped direct traffic and secure the location; there was no evidence of the state being present at all. There is something symbolic in this. Similarly, on October 7 last year, the thousands of people at the Nova festival were also left on their own. With the state mostly absent, soldiers nearby were under siege by terrorists; tanks were overrun.

People who fled the festival and survived mostly ran east. Many of these people were rescued by civilian volunteers. The absence of Israel’s politicians from this event is important. The politicians have not investigated the October 7 massacre.

Most of them also seem unable to face the victims, embrace the families of the hostages or even confront the horrors of that day. There are exceptions, but their absence and the absence of any speech-making from this first anniversary was a welcome change from the claims that Israel is pursuing total victory in Gaza, or that the hostages are a priority, after having been left for a year in Gaza, just a few miles from where we gathered at the grounds of the festival.

It’s impossible to ignore this fact. Where we stood a year after the massacre is only a few miles from Gaza where more than 100 hostages are held. It’s impossible not to think of how they have been left there, civilians and soldiers, for far too long.