Israeli open-air rave site attracts tourists following Hamas attack on October 7

Site of the Nova festival, where people were killed and abducted during a Hamas attack on October 7

Near Reim, Israel:

Foreigners and Israelis walk among placards bearing the names and photographs of those killed in the open air, at the site of the bloodiest Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7.

Some take videos and photos on their mobile phones, others cry.

“It’s very important to come and see with our own eyes,” said Samantha Melker from Canada. “You see all these posters of real faces. And you see the devastation. You see that these were real people who lost their lives just to come to a party.”

Thousands of young people were partying in the early hours of 7 October when gunmen arrived from Gaza.

According to authorities, 364 people were shot, crushed, or burned to death, and some were sexually assaulted at the Nova festival amid tree-dotted bushes near Kibbutz Reim. About 40 were taken hostage in Gaza, 5 km (2 mi) away.

Some tourists come on tours organized by civil society groups, others come independently to pay homage to those killed in the Nova festival.

It was the deadliest incident in a shocking cross-border attack by Hamas that killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostage.

Health officials in the enclave say Israel’s subsequent war was aimed at eliminating the group that rules Gaza, killing more than 26,000 Palestinians.

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