An Israeli who escaped the Hamas attack on the Nova Music Festival is struggling with physical and mental scars a year later

Eitan Halley and his friends were looking forward to the Nova Festival last fall, partly because the tickets were affordable.

“We were all looking for jobs, so we didn't really have a lot of money,” said Halley, 28. “When the Nova tickets came out, they were really cheap. We all loved going to parties, and it seemed like a perfect thing to do right before the (school) year started.”

Halley and his friends didn't know the festival's exact location in advance – part of its mystique – but they planned to drive south to Be'er Shiva, a kibbutz in the area, a few days early to pick up supplies.

“I remember driving, looking out the window, seeing Gaza and thinking about my time in the army and how I stood guard a few kilometers from where I am now,” Halley said. “You grow up in Israel and in some ways you feel very safe. Even though you hear sirens and see rockets exploding overhead every year or two, you get the feeling that you have a very stable army and government. And then this. “Something like that happens.”

When the Nova Festival venue was announced, the group was excited. They went to the site, set up their tents and started having fun. There were trance DJs playing and lots of people drinking, dancing and taking drugs. People stayed up all night and the party peaked at sunrise.

But the dancing and fun quickly gave way to violence and fear.

On the morning of October 7, Hamas fighters broke through the border fence with the Gaza Strip in 60 different locations. According to Israel, about 1,200 people were murdered and more than 251 were taken hostage in the Hamas attack.

The attack would trigger an Israeli military response that would lead to a Humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza According to the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-run enclave, more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed so far. Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip are still ongoing.

The first sign that something was wrong was the lights of rocket fire.

“I look up and see the biggest – the most rockets I've ever seen in my life. And I want to remind you, I've been on the Gaza border in other wars, so I've seen rockets flying over my head, but I've never seen it at that volume,” Halley said.

The group ran back to their car and drove towards the festival entrance they had come through. They soon ran into each other in a traffic jam.

“There was nowhere for us to move. Everyone panicked. Rockets exploded over our heads. We didn't know if we were safe or not, we just knew that we had to get out of there. Suddenly a guy shouts at us: “There's another entrance over there.” The second he said that, we turned our back Turned the car around and drove in the other direction.

The group reached the main road and turned right to return to Be'er Shiva, where they had spent the last few days. Many others turned left towards Tel Aviv.

“All the people who went left hit the terrorists, and a lot of them didn’t manage to get out,” Halley said.

The group drove for a few minutes, rockets whizzing overhead, until they passed a small shelter on the side of the road. It was a temporary structure to protect the public from being caught driving during rocket attacks. There was no door that closed, just a wall protecting the entrance from flying debris.

The group stopped and ran inside to find the shelter already crowded. People continued to file in, including Aner Shapira and Hersh Goldberg-Polin, until a final group of three entered and said they were fleeing terrorists who were shooting at their car.

“And at that point my heart skipped a beat and I realized something bad was going to happen,” Halley said. “I remember a few seconds after that happened, we heard cars pulling up, a group of people jumped out and shouted in Arabic, and they started shooting at the entrance.”

Halley said everyone at the shelter tried to call for help – they called the police or the army – but no matter who they talked to, they couldn't get anyone to come to their aid.

“I talk to them and tell them they're going to shoot at us and try to kidnap or kill us and we're not getting any response,” Halley said.

Then his phone was shot out of his hand and he realized that the terrorists were throwing grenades into the bunker.

Shapira, who had entered earlier with Goldberg-Polin, immediately jumped into action, picking up the live grenades from the ground and throwing them back through the shelter's entrance.

“He was focused. He understood that he had a mission and wanted to do nothing but stay there. He wasn't planning on hiding or running away or anything like that. He just wanted to fight. “Stay alive,” Halley said.

The shells kept coming. Shapira caught and threw back around eight o'clock until “at some point there was a really big explosion and I flew back. Someone flew towards me and when I finally stood up, I remember Aner was no longer standing. He was gone.” “I think Hersh lost his hand below the elbow,” Halley said.

The attackers threw more grenades, and Halley says he took it upon himself to throw them back until they threw two at a time and one exploded. He was knocked unconscious and when he finally woke up, he saw a masked attacker running over him in the shelter, carrying an AK-47 and wearing a headscarf with the Hamas symbol.

“I remember you could see his mouth through the mask. “He had a little opening and was smiling like it was a game they won, and I was able to keep my eyes open for a second before I passed out again,” Halley said.

The attackers began taking hostages, including Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli-American Six hostages were killed in September shortly before Israeli forces found them. Goldberg-Polin's body was found in a tunnel under the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

At the animal shelter, Halley had survived the grenade explosion.

“They checked to see if I was still alive. I don't know how I remember it because I was outside. I was 100% out. and they just passed me over,” he said.

The attackers sprayed the remaining bodies with bullets, and by the time Halley woke up, they had left the shelter.

“I realized I was sitting in a pile of corpses and I think there were seven of us survivors. There were two or three other people who were critically injured. They tried to be as quiet as possible because they knew they could do it.” “If it makes noise, the terrorists could just come in and throw another grenade and we wouldn't be able to do anything. And that still haunts me to this day,” Halley said. “They couldn't be quiet anymore and started screaming because they had bullet wounds or shrapnel from the grenades… At some point they just stopped screaming and I'm almost sure that's when they died or she died.” a short time later and from that moment we were there for another six hours.

Halley and the others were eventually found by the father of a festival-goer who had received a frantic call from his son at the animal shelter. When he got the call, he grabbed a gun and drove to the scene.

He managed to request army support and Halley was eventually put in a jeep and driven to Be'er Shiva.

“I remember seeing on the side of the road – I don't even know how many, but there were just so many cars that looked shot up. Many of the cars had occupants in them so you could see they were dead,” Halley said.

Of the more than 3,000 people who went to the Nova Music Festival, 364 were murdered and 44 others were taken back to Gaza as hostages. Hundreds more were injured and thousands are still receiving psychological counseling. Some have taken their own lives.

Halley is one of the survivors who left behind both physical and psychological scars.

“I might cry in the middle of the day for no reason,” he said. “It’s very, very hard.”

“I still have a headache from the explosions and from fainting, I think. Dizziness, nausea, I'm losing my balance I think because of my eardrums. My hearing was damaged. “Obviously, sleeping is suddenly a lot more difficult,” he said. “I still have splinters in most parts of my body. Sometimes I still feel my skin burning.”

Halley said he tries to avoid things that bring back memories of the attack.

“I haven’t really listened to trance music since October 7th, and I’m not really ready to listen to it today,” he said. “One day I hope I can go back to parties and dance and enjoy myself like I used to.”

Halley is one of several festival-goers who shared their stories of survival in “We Will Dance Again,” a documentary from See It Now Studios. Stream it now on Paramount+.