Nova tunes competition survivor recalls barefoot 15-mile escape from Hamas

An Israeli survivor of the Hamas assault on the Nova pageant on Oct. 7 recalled managing barefoot for in excess of 15 miles when terrorists shut in from all instructions in a “circle of loss of life.”

“You could hear the bullets whistling and hitting the sand. I had a bodily feeling that I had this giant concentrate on on my again that was finding more substantial. I could listen to screams but I thought, if I glimpse back again, I’m lifeless,” Nadav Hanan, 27, told the Guardian of his day-extended ordeal functioning as a result of fields in the hope of locating security from the Hamas attackers.

Just several hours earlier, Hanan was partying with his buddies at the Nova songs festival in the southern Negev, just above the border with the Gaza Strip.

“It was soon after 6 a.m. It was the peak of the social gathering. A large amount of persons time their drugs to kick in for dawn at these parties. It really should be one of the very best times,” he stated of the last times right before Hamas terrorists attacked and killed 360 festivalgoers. 

“The people today at the most important phase could not see what was occurring but we experienced a obvious look at of Gaza. We could see Iron Dome [the Israeli anti-missile defense system] functioning. I knew the occasion was above,” Nadav continued.

Nadav’s girlfriend and mom read the sirens and known as him to arrive dwelling, he advised the Guardian. 

He and his close friends tried out to travel absent from the competition internet site, but streets ended up blocked.

“We were being at a T-junction. There was a policeman protecting against individuals likely left but would not tell us why. I was nevertheless naive at this position, contemplating that it was mainly because of the rockets,” Nadav reported of the chaotic scene.

Just a limited distance away, having said that, Hamas terrorists were ambushing people today in their cars and trucks.

“We were being thinking about going correct, which will take you south, when we noticed one more motor vehicle approaching from that direction on the wrong side of the road. There have been two men, actually frightened. They instructed us they had acquired as much as a fuel station wherever they had been shot at,” Nadav spelled out.

At that moment, Nadav stated, he and his buddies ditched their autos and determined the most effective way out was to run across the close by fields.

As they started out the desperate trek, nevertheless, they were confronted by a passing car or truck and golfing cart towing injured victims.

“The man or woman in the again was actually wobbly. Battling to sit up if they weren’t supported. I could see three circles of blood that I realized ended up bullet holes,” Nadav claimed of the injured person in the back of the golfing cart.

It was just a few minutes afterwards that he heard gunshots close by and took off with his bag, he continued.

“There was a wadi [riverbed] forward of us with loads of men and women in it. I was sporting Birkenstocks but I could not run in them so I took them off,” Nadav mentioned.

“One of my close friends was looking back. He could see a few or 4 [Hamas operatives] over us on the major of the wadi. He was striving to whisper but his voice was receiving louder and louder: ‘I see them! I see them!’

“By then we know there were Hamas down below us as properly, so we clambered over a 4-meter-significant lender. By this stage, I by now had a few thorns in my ft,” he recalled.

The team then reached an agricultural street, wherever Hamas fired on them again as they sought protect by moving toward some trees.

“At this point, I just cannot bear in mind almost everything. It’s like it bought deleted. We modified direction but were getting shot at yet again. That’s when I recognized: They had been just about everywhere,” Nadav informed the Guardian.

At some point, the terrifying truth of the matter turned distinct: Hamas was surrounding them.

“It’s a circle of demise. And it is obtaining smaller and more compact,” he remembered thinking at the time.

Hanan refused his friends’ tips that they end and test to hide.

 “I said: ‘No, it’s waiting for mercy.’ I desired to continue to keep on going for walks,” he recalled.

Hamas fired on them once more as they struggled to cross a furrowed industry, he ongoing.

Then Hanan’s phone rang: It was his reserve commander, calling him for responsibility.

Hanan stated he was by now in the location, and questioned for assist, but the commander said he could not do just about anything, and wished him luck.

A when later, a lone soldier directed Hanan and his group to some farm properties, he explained.

“We’d been jogging for three hrs by now. We’d operate out of water and there at minimum was some agricultural h2o. It was not very good to drink but it was anything to set in the bottle and sip,” Hanan explained to the Guardian.

They experienced not stopped for very long, even so, prior to a youthful girl arrived managing by and explained to them to get out.

Loud noises across the subject indicated that Israeli helicopters have been participating Hamas on the floor, Hanan explained.

The team inevitably made a decision to stroll towards a nearby village called Patish — despite the point that the neighborhood police explained preventing was going on there, also.

They termed the station two times, Hanan stated. The officer he spoke with questioned them not to call back.

“Finally we manufactured it to the street. There were farm pickups with trailers hooked up. We acquired into one particular of them, possibly 40 of us all on top of every single other,” Hanan discussed.

The trucks took the group to a secure place. By that time, it was 4 in the afternoon, and they had been on the operate for almost 10 several hours, the Guardian noted.

Hanan — who started out remedy two times just after the Oct. 7 assault — claimed he is however battling with flashbacks and other residual trauma responses from the ordeal.

Hanan stated he has also long gone on retreats for Nova pageant survivors in Cyprus.

“I consider in peace. I believe we’re not that different. My grandparents came from Arab international locations. I have Arab buddies. We consume the similar foods and use the similar curses,” he mentioned of the ongoing conflict.

Hanan called the Hamas terrorists an “abomination.”

“No a single mentally secure could do this. There is no justification. I believe they had the selection [to say no when they were ordered to do this]. They took the other decision. They decided, ‘Let’s eliminate as lots of as we can,’ to make us despair and to f–k us up,” he insisted.