A site of massacre that has become a place of remembrance: Every week thousands of visitors come to pay their respects at the site of the Tribe of Nova music festival, where 364 people were killed in the October 7 attack by the Palestinian movement Hamas.
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Dropped off by a steady stream of buses and cars, they end up on the edge of fields and forests where nearly 3,000 festival-goers had settled in on October 6 for two days of techno partying in southern Israel, a few kilometers away. from the Gaza Strip.
On this morning in late February, hundreds of people are streaming there after leaving Street 232, where Hamas commandos from Gaza killed hundreds of people.
When exiting in the Reïm car park, visitors are greeted by a huge mosaic of photos of the victims with the slogan “We will remember you for eternity”.
With 364 deaths, the Nova site was by far the most damaged by Hamas attacks on October 7, killing a total of 1,160 people. About 250 people, including more than 40 festival-goers, were also taken hostage that day, and 130 people are still held in Gaza.
Hundreds of trees were planted in a field – one per victim, their still weak trunks supported on stakes. What was still barren in October has now turned green and is also covered in red anemones.
“Therapy”
A group of several dozen uniformed soldiers, some of whom have just returned from the Gaza Strip where they were fighting, sing Hatikva, the Israeli national anthem.
They are joined by a group of women from Mexico. Among them, Jacqueline Sefami, a member of a Mexican organization that supports Israel, does not hide her feelings. “I can't stop crying,” she confessed to AFP.
Suddenly there are explosions from Gaza, where Israel is carrying out an offensive in retaliation for the Hamas attack that killed more than 29,800 people, mostly civilians, according to the Palestinian Islamist movement's health ministry.
Elazar Goldstein, 42, just completed a long stint in the military reserves. He walks across the field hand in hand with his wife, whom he has brought with him to show him “what this 'trash' has done here.” “Nothing justifies war more than this,” he said.
Further away, sticks bearing a photo of a victim or hostage captured on site have been planted and decorated with Israeli flags, candles, floral wreaths and other distinctive items, including several guitars.
The majority of visitors are Israelis, like the group led by Frédéric Coscas, a French-speaking guide from Netanya (center), who describes the attack on about twenty people.
He said he was upset when he “saw the photos of all these young people just begging to stay alive.” “For me, coming here is therapeutic,” adds Mr. Coscas, whose daughter was at the festival and narrowly escaped death.
The Nova site is one of the few sites open to visitors among the more than 40 sites attacked by Hamas (including about ten military bases and about thirty villages and kibbutz).
“Tell your story”
After October 7, official delegations marched to pay their respects at the targeted kibbutzim, but their residents eventually called for calm and an end to the visits.
However, they continue in the town of Ofakim, the furthest site of the attack from the Gaza Strip (more than 25 km) and where almost 40 civilians and police were killed.
A group of young girls from a religious seminary in Jerusalem listen with tears in their eyes to Shiran, 37, widow of Roni Abouharon, a police officer killed on the street by Hamas.
“I am proud of him, I want to tell his story so that we understand that the Jewish people are alive and will win,” she admits in front of his portrait, which hangs on the spot where he was killed, in the central quarter of The Walls were still riddled with bullet holes.
For Yaffa Moskowitz, educational director of the seminar, “it is important to show our students what happened here so that they can connect with this history.”
At the site of the Nova massacre, reserve soldier Elazar Goldstein is confident about the future.
“I was there on the 8th, I saw the bodies, and today I see all this greenery and all the people coming here in complete safety… I'm optimistic, but it's a long process.”