On the morning of October 7, 2023, approximately 3,500 young people were attending the Supernova (Nova) music festival in an open field near Kibbutz Re’im in the Gaza Envelope. They had come to celebrate Simchat Torah with music and dancing under the desert sky. By the end of the morning, 378 of them were dead, dozens were taken hostage, and hundreds were wounded. The massacre at Nova was the deadliest single event of October 7, 2023, and the largest terrorist attack in the history of the State of Israel.
Trance Scene in Israel
To understand Nova, you need to understand what trance culture means in Israel. Israel has the largest trance music scene per capita in the world. After mandatory military service, tens of thousands of young Israelis travel to India, Southeast Asia, and South America, where many discover electronic and psytrance music. They bring it home, and it becomes a language of release, community, and freedom. Outdoor trance festivals in the desert are a cultural institution: gatherings where young people who have spent two to three years carrying the weight of military service come to dance, to let go, and to connect with something larger than themselves.
The Supernova festival was part of this tradition. It was an international event, part of the global Tribe of Nova series, drawing DJs and attendees from Israel, Brazil, Nepal, Germany, and dozens of other countries. The festival began on the evening of October 6 at a site near Kibbutz Re’im, chosen for its open desert landscape. The music was playing, the dancers were dancing, and for a few hours, the border with Gaza, just a few kilometers away, did not exist.
6:29 AM – The Rockets
At 6:29 AM on October 7, the sky filled with rockets. The festival organizers, recognizing the danger, stopped the music and announced an evacuation. Thousands of people began moving toward their cars and the single exit road. For a few minutes, it seemed like a familiar disruption: rockets from Gaza were not unusual in this area, and festival-goers began an orderly departure.
Attack
Then the terrorists arrived. Hamas fighters, who had breached the border fence as part of the broader October 7 assault, reached the festival site in pickup trucks, on motorcycles, and on foot. They opened fire on the fleeing crowd. The single access road became a death trap: vehicles were ambushed, shot at, set on fire. People abandoned their cars and ran into the open fields. Paragliders were used by some attackers to reach the area from above.
What followed was a hunt. Terrorists pursued fleeing festival-goers across the fields, through orchards, and into the surrounding kibbutzim. People hid in bushes, ditches, bomb shelters, and behind rocks for hours. In one bomb shelter near the festival site, terrorists threw grenades inside, killing and wounding dozens of young people who had sought refuge there. The attack lasted several hours. Security forces were overwhelmed by the scale of the simultaneous assault across the entire Gaza Envelope and took hours to reach the festival area in sufficient numbers.
Ambulance
One of the most haunting images from Nova is a burned-out ambulance that arrived at the scene to evacuate the wounded and was attacked by the terrorists. The medics who came to save lives became victims themselves. The ambulance, riddled with bullet holes and burned, has been preserved as part of the memorial. It represents something that crosses every line: the deliberate targeting of those who came to heal, the destruction of the most basic human covenant that says you do not shoot at an ambulance.
Numbers
378 people were murdered at the Nova festival. The youngest was 18. The oldest was in their 60s. Most were in their twenties and thirties. Dozens were taken hostage to Gaza. Hundreds were physically wounded. Thousands were psychologically scarred. The attack was the single deadliest terrorist event in the history of the State of Israel, and one of the deadliest terrorist attacks anywhere in the world in the 21st century.
The Memorial
The festival site has been transformed into a memorial. The entrance is lined with photographs of the 378 victims, each face looking out at the visitor. Personal items left behind, shoes, phones, bags, water bottles, are displayed where they were found or collected with care. The stage that held speakers and lights now holds memory. A wall of notes, letters, and messages from visitors covers the perimeter.
The memorial is not designed to be a museum. It is designed to be a presence. Walking through the site in silence, reading names and faces, standing in the field where the music played and where the killing happened, the scale of the loss becomes real in a way that news reports and statistics cannot convey. Visitors leave stones, flowers, candles, and written prayers. Many visitors weep. Some stand in silence for a long time.
Music Continues
In the months after October 7, the Israeli trance community made a collective decision: the music would not stop. Memorial parties and tribute events were held across Israel, with DJs playing sets dedicated to the murdered festival-goers. The message was clear: Hamas attacked a music festival to kill joy. The response was to keep the music playing. The names of the dead are read at trance events. Their photographs are projected on screens. And the dancing continues, because stopping would mean they won.
Visit with Hoshen Tours
The Nova memorial is a place of mourning, remembrance, and defiance. Hoshen Tours visits with the gravity and respect that the site demands, telling the story of the young people who came to dance and the morning that shattered everything. The visit is not easy. It is not meant to be.