On Friday, October 6th, 2023, five lifelong best friends from the centre of Israel – Ben Cohen, Dor Toar, Tamar Gutman, Eden Moshe and Yiftah Twig – attended the Nova music festival close to the Gaza border. Known as “the gang”, and all 27 years of age, they were brutally murdered in the Hamas-led attack. Today they are buried side by side.
Since then, their families have become one – bonded by sorrow, trauma and longing for their loved ones who danced together and died together.
As Israel prepares to mark the first anniversary of the October 7th attack, siblings of the five gathered at the Nova site last week to remember and to recount their memories of that terrible day.
“They were always together and did everything together. They lived close together, they shopped together, they cleaned their apartments together and they had meals together,” recalled Adva Gutman, the elder sister of Tamar.
And together they decided to go to the music festival to mark the end of the Jewish festival of Sukkot.
At 6.30 on the morning of Saturday October 7th, the revellers noticed rockets in the sky. At about 7am sirens sounded, prompting the festival-goers to flee.
About 3,500 people attended the Nova rave, billed as a celebration of “friends, love and infinite freedom”. Intelligence gathered since October 7th has revealed, remarkably, that Hamas was unaware of the event taking place just over the border. Armed militants from the Hamas Nusseirat battalion, on motorcycles and in pickup trucks, were on their way to attack the nearby town of Netivot, when they noticed the party. They turned back and surrounded the festival site, opening fire indiscriminately on those trying to flee. They turned it into a killing field: the site of the worst massacre of that day.
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“We were sure that he was running away or hiding somewhere,” said Moran, Ben’s eldest sister, speaking at the gathering, which was organised by Media Central for the international media. “After a few hours we started to realise what was going on, that 3,000 terrorists had crossed into Israel. This was the start of a 19-day journey when we had no idea what had happened to Ben. This was the most difficult time. Not knowing.”
The five friends fled to nearby Kibbutz Be’eri but the kibbutz had already been infiltrated by gunmen, so they returned to the festival site. Police blocked the main exit road, highway 232, because Hamas gunmen had by then penetrated the entire area. Four of the five were shot and killed next to the highway. Twig, who had separated from the group, hid with others in a large metal rubbish container at the site. But the gunmen riddled the container with bullets, killing most of those inside, including him.
The festival-goers who sought refuge in nearby locations, such as roadside bomb shelters and orchards, were shot at point-blank range. Those who reached the road and the parking lot were trapped in a traffic jam as the gunmen fired at vehicles.
The families of the five set up a WhatsApp group to gather any scraps of information they could about the fate of their loved ones. Different relatives were assigned to different hospitals.
“We heard on the news about a party massacre but we didn’t realise at the time that Eden was at that party,” said Shalev Moshe, youngest brother of Eden Moshe. “Two days later the police knocked at our door and told us Eden had been killed.”
Moshe’s was the first confirmed death of the five. Over the next few days and weeks confirmation was received that all of them had been killed.
“After we got the news that Eden had been killed we realised this wasn’t going to end well,” said Moran. “We’ve been to five funerals together, marked five different 30-days of mourning, marked five birthdays and now we’re marking the one-year anniversary together. It’s devastating to see them buried together. It’s not something I can get used to. My bond with the other siblings – my new sisters, I call them – helps me to keep going.”
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Three hundred and sixty-four people were murdered at the festival site. Some of the bodies had been mutilated, raped and burned. Forty were kidnapped from the festival, of whom 18 are still being held captive in Gaza.
Gal Toar, Dor’s sister, says the family were informed of his death after 19 days. “Some days I’m fine, some days I’m not. It’s a rollercoaster of emotions. Grief takes a lot of forms, she said. “I gave birth on October 22nd and on the 25th we received confirmation that my brother had been killed. I used to hold my daughter and then cry, thinking about Dor.”
Tamar Gutman’s family received confirmation of her death 27 days later. “My sister loved horror movies but this is worse than any horror movie and it’s still going on,” said Adva. “We still have hostages in Gaza and the war is going on. It doesn’t end.”