On 7 October 2023, the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian nationalist and Islamist political organization Hamas, initiated a sudden attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip. As part of the attack, 378 people (344 civilians and 34 security personnel) were killed and many more wounded at the Supernova Sukkot Gathering, an open-air music festival during the Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret near kibbutz Re'im. Hamas also took 44 people hostage, and men and women were reportedly subject to sexual and gender-based violence. Some 20 of the attackers were also killed by Israeli security forces in the area of the festival.
This attack had the largest number of casualties out of a number of massacres targeting Israeli civilians in villages adjacent to the Gaza Strip, that occurred as part of the 7 October attack, alongside those at the kibbutzim and moshavim of Netiv HaAsara, Be'eri, Kfar Aza, Nir Oz and Holit.
At 6:30 a.m., which was around sunrise, rockets were noticed in the sky. Around 7:00 a.m., a siren warned of an incoming rocket attack, prompting festivalgoers to flee. Subsequently, armed militants, dressed in military attire and using motorcycles, trucks and powered paragliders, surrounded the festival grounds and indiscriminately fired on individuals attempting to escape. Attendees seeking refuge in nearby locations, such as bomb shelters, bushes, and orchards, were killed while in hiding. Those who reached the road and parking were trapped in a traffic jam as militants fired at vehicles. The militants killed some wounded individuals at point-blank range as they crouched on the ground.
On 13 October 2025, the last living hostage was released, and two days later the body of the last hostage was returned. The massacre at the festival was the largest terror attack in Israel's history,Israel has suffered the biggest terror attack in its history. How will it respond? , The Economist, October 9th 2023 and the worst Israeli civilian massacre ever.
Gathering and festivities Supernova Sukkot Gathering was a weekend-long outdoor trance music festival that began on 6 October 2023"Tribe Of Nova Proudly Presents Supernova Sukkot Gathering, Universo Paralello Israel Edition, 6–7 October 2023." [21 June 2023?]. eventer. Accessed 2 November 2023. and was produced by an organizer called Nova, also referred to as Tribe of Nova. It was the Israeli edition, pre-festival event of Universo Paralello, a psychedelic trance festival started 23 years earlier in Bahia, Brazil. It took place in the western Negev desert, approximately from the Gaza–Israel barrier, near kibbutz Re'im. The line-up included artists well known in the psychedelic trance scene, such as Astral Projection and Man with No Name.
The organizers switched to the site only two days before, after the original location in southern Israel did not work out. Scheduled to coincide with Jewish holidays: the final day of Sukkot (6 October) and Simchat Torah (7 October), the rave was billed as a celebration of "friends, love and infinite freedom". The festival site had three stages, a camping zone, and an area with a bar and food. Attendees described the crowd as mostly consisting of Israelis of ages 20–40 from across the country. Attendance was reported to be 3,500 but figures vary. Security guards and police were present at the festival.
Hamas assault
The festival was one of the first targets of Hamas's surprise attack against Israel in the early morning hours of 7 October 2023. Israeli security services investigations have found it unlikely that Hamas had advance knowledge of the festival, citing, among other evidence, that the festival had been planned to run until 6 October and was only recently extended to 7 October. The massacre was carried out by the 1st and 3rd companies of Hamas's Nuseirat Battalion. Their original target was the city of Netivot, but after noticing the party they turned back and headed in its direction, where they committed the massacre. Afterwards, they again headed towards Netivot. After seeing an Israeli tank, they turned back again and joined the Nuseirat Battalion's 2nd company at kibbutz Be'eri in perpetrating the Be'eri massacre.
The attack opened with a rocket barrage starting at about 6:30 a.m. that provided cover for infiltration. A rocket siren sounded in the area. Militants blasted through the border fence in numerous locations and began infiltrating into Israel. Some of the Hamas gunmen who attacked the festival infiltrated Israel via motorized paragliders.
At 6:35 a.m., the senior police commander on duty at the festival, Deputy Superintendent Nivi Ohana of the Ofakim police station, taking note of the unusually heavy rocket fire, decided to shut down the event and evacuate the partygoers. This decision is credited with saving hundreds of lives. Ohana also requested additional security and backup subsequently arrived, including a team from the Yasam riot control unit. Ohana and members of the production team called on the partygoers to disperse through loudspeakers.
By 7:00 a.m., Ohana had left to defend his city, which was also under attack. Partygoers began fleeing as the police directed them to evacuate along Route 232. At 7:13 a.m., the Home Front Command officer at the Northern Brigade of the Gaza Division received an inaccurate update that some 90% of the partygoers had evacuated and that there were reports of gunfire, and passed it on. At this stage, the division wrongly understood that the party had largely dispersed.
Police directing traffic out of the area noticed that many partygoers were returning after coming under fire. Those who fled north were fired at near Alumim, Be'eri, and Sa'ad, and those who then tried to flee south came under fire from militants who had captured junctions along the highway. After realizing what was happening along the evacuation routes, police opened a dirt path leading east, enabling thousands of people to escape through agricultural fields toward Patish, with people fleeing both by car and foot. Dozens of vehicles were abandoned by fleeing partygoers along Route 232 and on the festival grounds. Meanwhile, Hamas fighters murdered partygoers along the highway and at several roadside bomb shelters. Public roadside bomb shelters which were used as cover and subsequently became death traps as militants attacked them became known as the Death Shelters. Aner Shapira was credited with helping to protect the shelter he was in. After militants threw grenades into his shelter, he threw several back at them before being killed by a grenade. Hersh Goldberg-Polin was abducted from the same shelter after being seriously wounded.
By 8:00 a.m., about 90% of the partygoers had evacuated the festival grounds. The only people remaining behind were police officers, event staff, and some partygoers who thought the grounds were safer than the roads. At the same time, a force of 110 Hamas fighters on 14 pickup trucks and two motorcycles entered Israel from Nuseirat, heading for Netivot. The force passed Be'eri, where a militant outside the kibbutz signaled to the force to continue along Route 232. However, the force got lost near Shokeda and instead of heading north and then east to Netivot, the militants headed south toward the Nova festival grounds. On the way, they stopped at a bomb shelter near Be'eri and murdered several people sheltering there, including partygoers who fled the festival.Nova music festival massacre probe: IDF missed warning signs, one cop saved hundreds
At 8:12 a.m., the militants spotted a police roadblock near the festival and an exchange of fire began as the police officers, armed only with pistols, engaged. At 8:14 a.m., a RPG was fired at the roadblock, striking an abandoned vehicle and wounding several police officers and partygoers in the vicinity. Dozens of partygoers who had assembled near the police officers along the highway began to flee either back into the festival grounds or east through the fields. Those who fled into the festival grounds began looking for places to hide, taking cover in bushes, portable toilets, and dumpsters. Members of the staff also hid underneath the drink bars. An ambulance that had been in the area for the event also drove from its position at the entrance into the festival grounds and 20 people took cover in and around it.
At 8:20 a.m., an IDF tank that had been stationed at the Paga military outpost and had sustained heavy fire while battling the Hamas invasion arrived. Two of the crewmen had been killed and another, Sergeant Ofir Testa, was seriously wounded, with only the driver, Corporal Ido Somech, able to keep fighting. The tank arrived in the midst of combat between the militants and police. Upon seeing the tank, the militants halted their advance and opened fire on the tank with RPGs and gunfire. In spite of his injuries, Testa got out of the tank and gave his assault rifle to a festival security guard who was unarmed. He was then killed by gunfire as he turned to head back to the tank. The militants attempted to climb onto the tank as Somech shot at them, killing one. Somech then drove the tank out of the area, running over several abandoned vehicles and militants in the process, and stationed the tank next to the highway. Some fleeing partygoers and police officers used the tank for cover as they fled south along Route 232, while about 30 partygoers sheltered behind the tank and were defended by two brothers, Daniel and Neria Sharabi, who were both IDF infantry veterans. The Sharabi brothers entered the tank, took a gun from a dead soldier and the tank's machine gun, and used them to fend off attackers, while also applying improvised tourniquets to the wounds of partygoers. They received advice from Yoni Skrisewsky, a commander of Daniel's reserve company, over WhatsApp.
The militants continued to advance along the highway, setting fire to abandoned cars. The tank and those using it as cover continued to withdraw south from the festival area. Surviving police and festival security guards kept fighting around the tank but could no longer defend the way to the festival grounds. The retreat of the tank, police, and security guards opened the way for the militants to reach the grounds. At 8:50 a.m., the militants spotted partygoers fleeing east along the dirt path and opened fire. From 9:00 a.m. to 9:10 a.m., they abducted seven hostages who had been hiding along the sides of the highway. At 9:15 a.m., Major Avraham Hovelashvili, deputy commander of the IDF's Caracal Battalion, was killed near the festival grounds after encountering a group of militants while en route to the Sufa area to join his unit. Shortly afterwards, the commander of the militants instructed his forces to enter the festival grounds.Shock, Collapse, Poor Communication: IDF Probe Shows How Nova Was Left Alone Against Hamas
Dozens of Hamas fighters subsequently raided the festival grounds and established a command post. The militants killed most of the civilians they encountered and took others hostage. One attendee stated that after cutting the electricity, a group of approximately 50 Hamas gunmen arrived in vans and sprayed gunfire in all directions. The open terrain left few places to hide. Many attendees who hid in the trees were killed as militants methodically shot them. Others who hid in bushes and orchards managed to survive. The ambulance being used as cover by 20 people was hit by an RPG, killing 18. Many of the attendees attempted to call for help through phone calls and WhatsApp messages. However, it took hours for emergency responders and the military to reach the festival grounds.