סיפור מלחמה

testimony of Noa Beer from the Universo Paralello party in Israel.
At first, when I saw the rockets flying above our heads I thought “what a shame”. But when I was faced with a terrorist with a rifle 20 meters away from me and being surrounded by 6 more, I understood that shame wasn’t the right word, maybe fright, or maybe just misbelief that something like this could ever happen in my country.
I arrived at the party at 02:45 AM, my job was to bring one of the foreign DJ’s for his set and up to the end of his set everything seemed so great, people were happy, partying, enjoying themselves.
After his set I went into the dance floor, I like feeling the energy of happy people all around me.
At 06:20 I went back onto the stage, to film my good friend during his set. The last video on my phone was taken at 06:28AM, just seconds before we noticed that there were rockets in the sky. The situation was surreal, we didn’t hear anything as the music was loud but suddenly we started seeing the rockets in the sky. The next few moments were scary, we shut down the music and yelled to the crowd that there were rockets and everyone should lay down and cover.
I went backstage, we were around 20 people sitting there scared for our lives but with no clue as to what was coming. After a few minutes someone on the microphone told us all to start getting out of the party area as quickly as possible, so I told the DJ I was with that we were running to the car and getting out.
We were one of the first cars out of the party, I thought it was lucky, we had no clue as to what was coming.
5 minutes later we were around 5 cars on the road, I was in the third car and most of the people had stopped on the way to get into shelter, I was trying to get back home as fast as I could.
The next few minutes are hard to explain, the 2 cars before me suddenly hit the brakes and went straight into each other and there was a motorbike on the side of the road with a man laying next to it, I thought they had hit the bike and stopped. I was opening my door to help the wounded when I saw the first terrorist, he was 20 meters in front of me, firing like crazy straight at me, looking into my eyes. I yelled at the DJ to get out of the car and take cover, I thought there were soldiers firing back at him but to my horror it was more terrorists, they were all around us, nowhere to go. The people who were still alive from the other cars were crawling towards us, injured and scared, we were 5 people hiding between the cars.
It was a split second decision, I yelled out “everyone get in the CAR!” and sat in the driver seat, it took too long to release the parking mode of the car and injured people were getting in the back seats, I was so scared, there was a terrorist straight ahead, shooting like crazy with murder in his eyes.
I don’t know how my body managed to make the decision to try and drive out of there but that decision saved my own and another 4 peoples lives. I drove backwards and turned when I saw I could, and there were more terrorists waiting, cars colliding as the drivers were shot in front of our eyes, people trying to run and being shot dead on the spot. It was about 10 seconds that I saw more death than ever in my life. I saw him, looking me dead in the eyes and lifting the gun to shoot us the moment I started driving towards him, and then I did, no looking back I stepped on the gas and drove, he shot at us, he was maybe 2 meters away and barely missed the window. I continued driving while the back of the car was still being shot and didn’t look back. I had 2 injured people in the car, one was shot in her leg and another in his hand. My first call was to my friend that was one of the producers, I wanted to tell them that there was shooting on the road and not to let anyone drive our direction, this was just minutes before the terrorists arrived at the party itself.
The next 30 minutes were completely focused on getting us to a safe place, with people injured in the car and us not knowing how bad we were all hurt, rockets still flying over our bjheads every secind. We got to the hospital, the injured were getting medical help and I was just waiting there, not knowing what to do next. And then the injured started to arrive, my friends, shot and wounded, bleeding and scared, people crying that they had seen their loved ones killed, parents looking for their children not knowing where they were. I spent 4 hours in that emergency room, trying to help and calm the people around me.
The rest of the story is not a happy one, I made it home, with only a small scratch on my leg to show for the horrors witnessed that morning, my friends haven't. Hundreds of people are being held by Hamas, hundreds killed and hundreds more missing. We all came to celebrate our freedom and love and were left there bleeding and in pain, there are no words to describe the horrors witnessed by us, children of love and trance. May all the beautiful souls come home safe.