CNN –
Gaza militants who attacked a nighttime music festival in southern Israel shot the revelers at close range and then looted their belongings, according to new car dashcam video confirmed by CNN.
The video began circulating on social media on Sunday and – along with footage of harrowing kidnappings in the same event – was scrutinized by horrified families desperate for news of missing loved ones since a series of coordinated attacks on Sunday triggered Israel’s declaration of war .
Israeli officials counted at least 260 bodies near the Nova festival outside Re’im, where earlier footage showed carefree partygoers from Israel and abroad dancing in the desert shortly after sunrise on Saturday.
Some survivors are among more than 100 hostages the militant group Hamas is believed to be holding in Gaza, according to friends and family members who have seen them in videos shared on social platforms.
Dashcam video confirmed by CNN gives a glimpse of the terror as militants took over the festival and used deadly force to prevent some partygoers from leaving.
According to the timecode, the first clip begins at 9:23 a.m., almost three hours after the first explosions were reported at the Nova festival.
The video has no sound, but a militant is seen screaming and then pointing his machine gun at a man taking cover next to the car. It is unclear whether the gunman fired a warning shot or whether he just shot and injured the civilian, who was then taken away. His fate is unknown.
02:01 – Source: CNN
CNN reporter visited the scene of the music festival massacre. Here’s what she found
In the video, a second person can be seen lying on the ground behind another car. The person starts moving and suddenly another militant appears on the screen, aims at the person, shoots and walks away. The person on the ground remains standing.
Another dashcam video, time-stamped at 12:09 p.m., shows two militants approaching the body of the second person. They go through the person’s pockets and one person takes something from the person’s body and puts it in their own back pocket.
Less than three minutes later, militants grab a woman from the back of the car. She is taken away and the militants begin to open the trunk of another car and empty a suitcase on the floor to steal it.
The video begins at 12:14 p.m. and the trapped woman runs back into view. With her hands raised, she appears to be waving towards the festival grounds.
Dirt and dust can be seen flying around as bullets hit the ground around them. She takes cover again next to the empty suitcase and the open trunk. Her fate is unknown.
The parents of Alexandre Look, a 33-year-old Canadian, told CNN news partner CBC they spoke to him on the phone as he tried to escape the gunfire. Look and others sought shelter in a bunker without a door during the militant attack, his parents said.
“And then I heard him telling his friends, ‘They’re coming back.’ There are many of them. And then I just heard a lot of gunfire, a lot of gunshots, and then we didn’t hear anything anymore,” Look’s mother, Raquel Ohnona Look, told CBC.
Look’s parents said he died trying to protect others from the gunfire.
Family photo
Canadian citizen Alexandre Look died while protecting others, his parents said.
“Like a true warrior, he went as a hero to protect the people he was with. “Alex was a force of nature, endowed with a unique charisma and unparalleled generosity,” his father, Alain Haim Look, posted on Facebook on Saturday. “The world will never be the same without you. Farewell, my son, I love you and watch over us from above.”
François Legault, Prime Minister of the Canadian province of Quebec, expressed his condolences to the family on Monday.
“My thoughts are with the family and loved ones of Quebecer Alexandre Look, who lost his life in one of the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel.” Legault posted on X, formerly Twitter. “I am saddened by the dramatic circumstances of his death.”
Ricarda Louk last saw her daughter Shani lying face down in the back of a pickup truck heading toward the Gaza Strip, an isolated coastal enclave of nearly two million people spread over 140 square miles.
She last spoke to her after hearing rockets and alarms in southern Israel and called her daughter to see if she had made it to a safe place. Shani told her mother she was at the festival, in an open field with few places to hide.
Aerial photos posted on social media showed dozens of cars on the side of the road near the entrance to the festival site, some burned, others with missing windows and doors ajar.
From Instagram
Shani Louk in a post from her Instagram.
Shani was trying to reach one of those vehicles, her mother said.
“She went to her car and military men were standing next to the cars shooting so people couldn’t get to their cars, couldn’t even leave. And then they took her away,” Ricarda told CNN.
03:43 – Source: CNN
Mother describes seeing a video of her kidnapped daughter on social media
The disturbing video of her daughter in the back of the pickup truck and someone’s attempts to use Shani’s credit card twice after the attack in Gaza are the only clues she has to her daughter’s whereabouts.
She can be seen motionless in the video. One gunman, carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, has his leg draped over her waist and the other is holding a tuft of her dreadlocks. “Allahu Akbar,” they cheer – which means “God is great” in Arabic.
Ricarda hopes to see her daughter again, but the situation is bleak.
“It looks very bad, but I still have hope. I hope they don’t take any bodies with them for negotiations. I hope she’s still alive somewhere. We can’t hope for anything else, so I try to believe,” she said.
handout
A viral video showed Noa Argamani being kidnapped from the festival.
Like Ricarda Louk, Yakov Argamani last saw his daughter in one of the cell phone videos that emerged after Saturday’s raid.
Noa Argamani, 25, is seen pleading for help on the back seat of a motorcycle driven by Hamas fighters at the festival site.
Her tearful father struggled to find words to express his shock and sadness when he saw the video: “I couldn’t believe it… I didn’t want to believe it,” Yakov told CNN.
CNN
Yakov Argamani (left), Shlomit Marciano (center) and Leora Argamani (right) told CNN they were excited to hear the news of missing daughter and friend Noa Agramani.
Noa attended the festival with her boyfriend Avinatan Or, who was also taken away by militants.
Noa’s childhood friend Shlomit Marciano, who comforted her family when she spoke to CNN, said the text messages they received suggested her friends were in hiding for hours as militants rampaged through the festival grounds.
Or she texted Noa’s father around 10 a.m. to say the couple was safe, nearly four hours after the first reports of an attack. Other friends also texted, pleading for help, Marciano said.
01:03 – Source: CNN
Video shows militants taking festival-goers hostage
“No contact since then. We assume they were kidnapped when they were 12 years old. They probably hid for three or four hours, begging for help. They began to hide after hearing about the massacres and shooting. And then (the militants) found them,” Marciano said.
Now Yakov is relying on his faith, Marciano said.
“He believes in God. He prays that she is fine. And she will surely come back to him, to the family and to us. She is their only child.”