VIDEO. “I covered my face with blood”: survivor of Hamas attack returns to festival grounds

She jumps nervously every time she hears the sound of an explosion, and even dives to the ground for cover after a rocket attack from Gaza. A month after the tragedy, May Hayat returned to the Nova Tribe Festival for the first time, hoping it would help her overcome her trauma.

On May 30, he was working as a bartender at an open-air music festival, a few kilometers from the Gaza security fence, when Hamas militants attacked the site on October 7, killing 260 festival-goers and taking others hostage. She escapes death.

“They shot people to make sure they were dead.”

At the festival site, where time has stood still, May emotionally recalls this nightmarish morning. Hidden in a hole with Avi, another festival-goer, the barmaid is first discovered by the terrorists. “They killed Avi because he was crying. Then they started robbing everything, and I helped them. I gave everything I could find to this terrorist. And that’s probably what made him feel sorry for me. After hesitating to kill me, they let me go,” says the young woman.

May then hid under the stage and played dead until the Israeli army arrived hours later. “I’m lying under the stage and I see that they are shooting people to make sure that they are all dead. I took some blood from the man next to me who had been shot in the head and wiped it on my face to look dead,” May explains, still in shock.