Fabricated suicide letter from Nova survivor raises concerns

A suicide note thought to have been written by a young survivor of the October 7 attack at the Nova music festival, was found to be fabricated, according to Israeli media reports on Thursday. 

Earlier in the week, a social media post claimed that a young man who had survived the horrific Hamas attack on October 7 at the Nova festival, had committed suicide, and that his family had decided to share his suicide letter.

The letter purportedly described the man's traumatic experience at the festival, including witnessing his girlfriend being brutally attacked, and expressing deep guilt for not being able to help her.

The letter was posted anonymously in a Nova Survivors Facebook group and later shared on X (formerly Twitter) by Israeli writer Hen Mazzig. Mazzig was transparent about the difficulty in verifying the letter's authenticity and was careful to include a disclaimer in his original post.

However, on Thursday, Channel 13 reported that efforts to contact the author's family had led to an investigation. Channel 13’s Adam Shafir commented, "It is unclear what motivates someone to fabricate such a story. To diminish the real suffering of survivors and manipulate others' emotions is utterly despicable."

Delilah Schwartz, a volunteer at the SafeHeart organization who provides professional support to Nova survivors, confirmed that the letter was indeed fake after contacting the Facebook group’s administrator.

The trauma is still raw

Schwartz, who spoke with The Jewish Chronicle, was horrified, as were many others who had read the letter. 

“Most survivors are already dealing with these very intense feelings of guilt. To have this reflected in a very gut-wrenching fabricated suicide note, it’s very dangerous and callous,” she said.

“It undercuts the very real trauma that these survivors are going through and it overpowers the real stories and truth, which are just as horrifying."