The initial post had to be corrected. One of the first videos that circulated about the October 7 terrorist attacks claimed to show the music festival in southern Israel about to be attacked by Hamas fighters. You see people dancing, with what looks like paragliders in the background. It turns out it was smoke and debris from rockets being intercepted by Iron Dome:
Yet, this latest video clearly shows a paraglider descending into the festival moments before hundreds were killed:
It’s the rave that Shani Louk, a German-Israeli woman, attended. Louk became an international story as her lifeless body was shown being desecrated and spit on by Hamas terrorists on the day of the attacks. Her mangled body is seen in the back of a pickup truck, with her family identifying her through body markings and tattoos.
The IDF discovered her body this week while clearing out Hamas’ defensive positions. She had been beheaded, though it might have been post-mortem. The video shows Louk suffering from a severe head wound that we now can conclude was a gunshot. Louk was one of 260 people murdered at this event (via Tablet):
The attack on the festival outside of Re’im began around 7 a.m. The party was at its peak by then—which meant that by then most people were inebriated. At first, partygoers heard a loud explosion, which they took to be another sporadic rocket attack on southern Israel. But then the explosions grew louder and constant, and kept going for about five minutes. The music stopped, and the police protecting the 4,000 or 5,000 ravers began pushing everyone to leave.
By then, the terrorists were approaching in pickup trucks bearing Hamas military markings.
Shooting began. Many were executed on the spot. 260 bodies have been found, so far, on the site of the rave.
Many of the young men and women started running in the flat expanse of the western Negev desert. Faced with the spectacle of kids fleeing for their lives on a largely flat surface, the terrorists began rounding up the rest of their victims.
Others were captured and bound and kidnapped. “I saw videos with a male getting held by a group of Arab kids. Like, they’re like 16, 17,” one survivor recalled. “They’re kids, but they’re young men already, and they’re holding this guy, and he looks as his girlfriend is being mounted on a bike and driven away from him. God knows what she’s going to experience … Women have been raped at the area of the rave next to their friends bodies, dead bodies.”
Several of these rape victims appear to have been later executed. Others were taken to Gaza. In photographs released online, you can see several paraded through the city’s streets, blood gushing from between their legs.
The ground campaign by Israel in Gaza to eliminate Hamas began on October 28 after a prolonged air and artillery campaign. The IDF seeks to split the strip in two, with Gaza City surrounded yesterday. Israeli troops have entered the city and are clearing out terrorists. Israel is determined that Hamas can never use Gaza as a terror camp again, seeking to annihilate the terrorist organization.
