Thousands of young men and women gathered at a vast field in southern Israel near the Gaza border to dance without a care. Old and new friends jumped up and down, reveling the swirl of bass-heavy beats.
Maya Alper was standing at the back of the bar, with teams of environmentally conscious volunteers collecting trash and passing out free vodka shots to party-goers who reused their cups. As the morning began, as a light-blue sunrise broke in and the headliner D.J. looms in a bright light, Mr. Smith said. On stage, air raid sirens cut through the ethereal trap music. The rockets streaked overhead.
The 25-year-old raced to the main road, where she raced into her car. At the intersection, she encountered crowds of stricken festival guests shouting at drivers to turn around. A noise, then, a man and a woman. The panicked men and women, rushing down the road just in front of her, fell to the ground in pools of blood. The open-air Tribe of Nova music festival will be the nation's worst civil-wars event, in Israel's history. Dozens of Hamas militants who had blown through Israel's heavily fortified separation fence and crossed into the country from Gaza opened fire to young Israelis who had come together for a joyous night of electronic music. Some participants were drunk or high on drugs, magnifying their confusion and terror.
While rockets rained down, revelers said militants converged on the open field and others waited near bomb shelters, gunning down people who were seeking refuge. Israeli communities on both sides of the festival grounds also came under attack, with Hamas gunmen abducting dozens of men, women and children - including elderly and disabled people - and killing scores of others in Saturday's unprecedented surprise attack.
The staggering toll of the festival was becoming clear early Monday, as Israel's rescue service Zaka said paramedics had recovered at least 260 bodies. The event's organizers said they were helping Israeli security forces locate those who were still missing. The death toll could rise as teams continue to clear the area.
As the carnage came to an end, Alper pulled a few disoriented revelers from the street and accelerated in the opposite direction. One of them said he lost his wife in the chaos and Alper had to stop him from breaking out of the car to find her. She said she has just seen Hamas gunmen shoot and kill her best friend. Someone rocked in his seat, murmuring over and over, and Alper watched the dance floor where she had spent the past ecstatic hours transform into a giant cloud of black smoke.
Nowhere was safe, she said. The roar of explosions, hysterical screams and automatic gunfire felt closer as she drove. When a man shouted just meters away, Alper and her new companions sprung out of the car and sprinted through open fields toward a mass of bushes.
Alper had the feeling of a bullet whizzing across her left ear. She panicked as she knew the gunmen would outrun her, dipping into a tangle of shrubs. Peering through thorns, she said she saw one of her passengers, the girl who had lost her friend, shriek and collapse as a gunman stood over her limp body.
For over six hours, Alper - and thousands of other concert guests - hid without help from the Israeli army as Hamas militants sprayed automatic gunfire and threw grenades.
Alper, a tank instructor in the Israeli army, knew she was safe when she heard a different kind of explosion - the sound of an Israeli army tank round. The woman shouted for help, and soon soldiers were lifting her out of the bush. The deathless body of one of her friends laying around her remained unrecoverable. The girl from her car that she had seen collapsed was nowhere to be found - she fears that Hamas militants took her into Gaza.
Alper said the Israeli army was at a loss when it came to fighting Hamas militants in the hard-hit kibbutz of Be'eri near the Gaza border.
At the moment, the pick-up truck was full of Palestinian citizens of Israel. The men from Rahat, a bedouin city, were scouring the area to rescue Israeli refugees. As they helped Alper into their car, they drove her to the police station, where she collapsed, crying into her father's arms.
Alper said he heard from his father in the weeks after his death.