Israeli Music Festival Survivors Recount Mass Casualty Hamas Attack: ‘A Trauma Like I Could Never Imagine’

"I felt like existential fear. I have never felt so close to death," shared one survivor of a brutal civilian massacre that killed at least 260 festival-goers

When sirens interrupted an electronic music festival in Israel over the weekend, many attendees were unaware that a short distance away, missiles from Gaza were raining down on civilians. Then vans pulled up, and Hamas militants began firing into the crowd.

At least 260 attendees were killed at the Tribe of Nova music festival. Now, survivors of the mass casualty incident are beginning to describe what happened in the Negev desert on Saturday morning, as fighting between Israel and the Hamas-controlled Gaza continues.

Related: Israeli Father Recalls Panicked Phone Call Before His Wife and 2 Young Girls Were Kidnapped and Taken to Gaza

Maya Alper, a 25-year-old volunteer, was passing out free vodka shots to party-goers who reused their cups and picking up trash, but just after 6 a.m. local time, air raid sirens began blaring over the festival’s music as rockets shot overhead, AP News reports.

Alper told AP that she ran for her car, but as she attempted to exit, she found crowds of panic-stricken men and women who were also trying to escape. The young volunteer pulled a few festival-goers into her vehicle, including a man who was searching for his wife and a woman who'd watched a Hamas gunman fatally shoot her best friend.

“I can’t even explain the energy they [the militants] had, it was so clear they didn’t see us as human beings,” said Alper. “They looked at us with pure, pure hate.”

Related: Joe Biden Offers Support to Israel as Prime Minister Says 'We Are at War' After Hamas Attack

Alper told AP that as she left the festival grounds, explosions roared around them. She and her passengers bolted from the car and ran for an open field. Alper jumped into a bush to hide; the woman who'd watched her friend die earlier was shot by a grinning gunman.

As Alper and the concertgoers hid from the Hamas militants for over six hours, she attempted to remain calm by “breathing and praying in every way [she] knew possible.”

“Every time I thought of anger, or fear or revenge, I breathed it out,” said Alper. “I tried to think of what I was grateful for — the bush that hid me so well that even birds landed on it, the birds that were still singing, the sky that was so blue.”

After her rescue, Alper explained that the Israeli army — on its way to fight Hamas militants near the Gaza border — was unsure what to do with her. Then a truck full of Palestinian citizens of Israel pulled up. The men were from the Bedouin city of Rahat and were onsite to rescue Israeli survivors. They brought her to the police station, where she was met by her father, reports AP.

“This is not just war. This is hell,” Alper said. “But in that hell I still feel that somehow, we can choose to act out of love, and not just fear.”

Related: CBS Mornings' Tony Dokoupil Says His Children in Israel Are Safe amid Hamas Attacks: 'Roller Coaster Weekend'

Arik Nani, a 26-year-old who went to the festival to celebrate his birthday, ended up fleeing the massacre. “I heard shots from every direction, they were firing at us from both sides," he told Reuters. "Everyone was running and didn't know what to do. It was total chaos."

Speaking to AP, Nani said, "We were hiding and running, hiding and running, in an open field, the worst place you could possibly be in that situation. For a country where everyone in these circles knows everyone, this is a trauma like I could never imagine.”

Related: Israeli Defense Minister Calls for ‘Complete Siege’ of Gaza Strip Two Days After Hamas' Surprise Attack

Gal Levy, a 22-year-old who was shot in both legs, shared with CBS News that everyone immediately panicked when violence broke out at the festival. "We heard the bullets… everybody started running.”

He shared that a "terrorist” demanded he give his phone and money as he stood “above [him] with a gun.” Levy lost two liters of blood and told CBS he was “really sure” that while he was hiding he was going to die. He's not certain if he'll be able to walk again.

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Festival-goer Zohar Maariv shared with Reuters that "at one stage me and a friend got into a car with people we didn't know and we just jumped into a car with lots of people and started to drive." The 23-year-old explained that once the car came under fire, she and the other passengers ran on foot and hid for hours. Soon they were rescued, but her boyfriend remained missing.

"Only this morning did I understand the scale of what happened, that what had happened was not only at the party, it's the whole south is on fire," Maariv said.

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