‘I can still smell the bodies’: What happened after Hamas left the Nova festival site in Israel
Rami Shmuel went from producing a multi-day rave to searching through the bodies of partygoers who died at Nova festival.
What happened there on 7 October is now recorded as the site of the country’s worst terror attack. Israeli police say more than 360 mostly young men and women were murdered at the rave by Hamas fighters, who carried out a series of co-ordinated attacks across Israel that day.
Rami is emotional, when we speak on the phone, recalling the events of two months ago. But he is determined to provide an eyewitness account of what happened in the days that followed.
This article contains graphic descriptions of violence, death, sexual violence and torture.
This is what he said:
Rami was among those who gathered belongings dropped by festival-goers to return them to their families
Sixteen days.
The first 10 days we spent among the bodies. After that, we gave up on finding survivors.
The next six days were spent gathering belongings to give to the families – IDs, sunglasses, phones, shoes, bags.
When I close my eyes, I can still hear the screaming from that morning when the monsters came. I can still smell the bodies that were laid across the field under the bright sun.
Before, that same field was a dancefloor. I produced Unity festival, which ran earlier in that week and spilled into the Supernova festival on the Friday.
Everything was going great. Everyone was having fun, smiling, dancing. There was magic in the air.
The festival earlier in the week. Pic: Family handout/Amit Azriel
Then on Saturday, at exactly 6.28am, missiles flew over the dancers’ heads.
I had just gone home to pick up my wife. Back at the festival, the music was turned off and the evacuation began.
By 7.10am, we heard rumours of an invasion of Hamas terrorists. Then we began to hear gunshots and looked out the window – a car full of them drove past.
It was like a horror film.
An hour later, all hell had broken loose. Hamas were butchering, slaying, executing, shooting everyone.
Everyone started running in different directions, leaving their cars, running into the forest, hiding in the woods, trying to escape.
My friends and colleagues were desperately ringing me, screaming, shouting for help from the police, the military, anyone.
It is these conversations I hear in my head when I try to sleep at night.
The night before the attack, we had all sat around planning our next festival, and making sure everything was set up for Nova. Only two of us from that gathering survived.
I returned to the site in the early hours of 8 October. I wanted to look for friends, colleagues and missing people. They were my responsibility.
The human mind can’t process what I saw. The huge field was filled with bodies. They had been executed. A lot of them had a gunshot to the head or in the face. You couldn’t recognise them.
The festival site pictured in the days after the attack. Pic: AP
We found bodies for miles and miles around. People had run, but the monsters had taken them, killed them and threw their bodies away like bags of rubbish. That was Hamas’ main purpose. They came to butcher and kill.
We found my friend Matan Kido Elmalem, a DJ, but only because we recognised the ring on his finger.
Another friend of mine, Eric, had been burnt. He was at the festival with his young daughter, who was disabled and a wheelchair user. They used to dance with him holding her in his arms. I think that’s how he carried her as he ran from Hamas.
We found his body but couldn’t find hers. Eventually, an autopsy showed Ruth was with him all along. They had been so badly burnt we didn’t realise it was two bodies we had buried, not just one.
Eric, dancing with his daughter Ruth. Pic: Handout
There were bodies of people I didn’t know. There were three young girls I remember. All three had been stripped from the waist down. They were found in different parts of the festival.
One girl had almost made it to the bomb shelter. She had been shot in the face. Another had tried to escape by running behind where the festival was. They had shot her repeatedly below her waist.
A third girl – they poured gasoline on her face and set it on fire to torture her. It’s like they tried to turn her into a candle.
Their legs were open. There is not a doubt in my mind as to what happened. There is no reason for anyone to do this if not to humiliate the person, to rape them. Hamas chased them, humiliated them, ended them. The world should not let them exist. They are not animals because even animals do not act like that. They are monsters.
The people they murdered were from lots of different countries, not just Israelis. To me, this is not just our fight. I fear next time this could happen anywhere, and outside of Israel.
I lost a lot of people I knew. I was lucky to get away, and my family too.
Rami (second left) and his family before the attack. Pic: Family handout/Amit Azriel
I’ve not had therapy yet, I’m not ready. I used to cry when I got home and no one was there to see me but I don’t have any more tears. Sometimes, I wake up feeling nervous. Hamas shot at us while we were helping with the bodies. I don’t know how all those bullets missed us.
It is my birthday in a few days. I’m turning 50. Usually I have a huge party, like 3,000 people but this year I can’t face even three. I don’t know if I will ever be able to face a festival again.
I am just getting through things day by day.
As told to Sanya Burgess, digital investigations journalist.
Hamas has denied their fighters raped or sexually assaulted women during the attacks.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
There are increasing reports of violence and intimidation by Israeli settlers in occupied Palestinian territory.
Sky News chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay has been inside the West Bank, where he’s found settlers feeling emboldened since the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel.
With the government largely supporting them, they act with impunity and are in many ways enabled by Israel security forces.
But what are the settlements, and why are they controversial?
What are settlements?
A settlement is an Israeli-built village, town, or city in occupied Palestinian territory – either in the West Bank or East Jerusalem.
The largest, Modi’in Illit, is thought to house around 82,000 settlers, according to Peace Now.
There is also a growing movement of Israelis wanting to build settlements in Gaza.
Settlements are illegal under international law and have been condemned by the UN. They are, however, authorised by the Israeli government.
As well as official, government-approved settlements, there are also Israeli outposts.
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Israeli settlers attack Palestinian villages
These are established without government approval and are considered illegal by Israeli authorities. But reports suggest the government often turns a blind eye to their creation.
Israel began building settlements shortly after the 1967 Six-Day War.
The Etzion Bloc in Hebron, which was established that year, now houses around 40,000 people.
Read more:
Israel-Hamas war: A glossary of terms
Israeli-Palestinian conflict: A century of war, heartbreak, hope
What is the two-state solution?
According to the Israel Policy Forum, the settlement programme is intended to protect Israel’s security, with settlers acting as the first line of defence “against an invasion”.
The Israeli public appears divided on the effectiveness of the settlements, however.
A Palestinian man walks next to a wall covered with sprayed Hebrew slogans. Pic: Reuters
A 2024 Pew Research Centre poll found that 40% of Israelis believe settlements help Israeli security, 35% say they hurt it, and 21% think they make no difference.
Why are they controversial?
Israeli settlements are built on land that is internationally recognised as Palestinian territory.
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The activists trying to stop Israeli settlers
Sky News has spoken to multiple Palestinians who say they were forced out of their homes by Israeli settlers, despite having lived there for generations.
“They gradually invade the community and expand. The goal is to terrorise people, to make them flee,” Rachel Abramovitz, a member of the group Looking The Occupation In The Eye, told Sky News in May.
Settlers who have spoken to Sky News say they have a holy right to occupy the land.
American-born Israeli settler Daniel Winston told Sky’s chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay: “God’s real, and he wrote the Bible, and the Bible says, ‘I made this land, and I want you to be here’.”
Settlers make up around 5% of Israel’s population and 15% of the West Bank’s population, according to data from Peace Now.
How have things escalated since 7 October 2023?
Since the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023 and Israel’s subsequent military bombardment of Gaza, more than 100 Israeli outposts have been established, according to Peace Now.
In May, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government approved 22 new settlements, including the legalisation of outposts that had previously been built without authorisation.
Settler violence against Palestinians has also increased, according to the UN, with an average of 118 incidents each month – up from 108 in 2023, which was already a record year.
The UK government has sanctioned two members of Mr Netanyahu’s cabinet, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, for “repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian civilians” – notably in the West Bank.
The UN’s latest report on Israeli settlements notes that in October 2024, there were 162 settler attacks on Palestinian olive harvesters, many of them in the presence of IDF soldiers.
Of the 174 settler violence incidents studied by the UN, 109 were not reported to Israeli authorities.
Most Palestinian victims said they didn’t report the attacks due to a lack of trust in the Israeli system; some said they feared retaliation by settlers or the authorities if they did.
Madonna has urged the Pope to go to Gaza and “bring your light” to the children there.
In a plea shared across her social media channels, the pop star told the pontiff he is “the only one of us who cannot be denied entry” and that “there is no more time”.
“Politics cannot affect change,” wrote the queen of pop, who was raised Catholic.
“Only consciousness can. Therefore I am reaching out to a Man of God.”
The Like A Prayer singer told her social media followers her son Rocco’s birthday prompted her post.
“I feel the best gift I can give to him as a mother – is to ask everyone to do what they can to help save the innocent children caught in the crossfire in Gaza.
“I am not pointing fingers, placing blame or taking sides. Everyone is suffering. Including the mothers of the hostages. I pray that they are released as well.”
Pope Leo XIV leads a Mass for young people in Rome. File pic: AP
Pope Leo has been outspoken about the crisis in Gaza since his inauguration, calling for an end to the “barbarity of war”.
“I appeal to the international community to observe humanitarian law and respect the obligation to protect civilians as well as the prohibition of collective punishment, of indiscriminate use of force and forced displacement of the population,” he said in July.
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Gaza: ‘This is a man-made crisis’
WHO chief thanks Madonna
Every child under the age of five in Gaza is now at risk of acute malnutrition, according to UNICEF – “a condition that didn’t exist in Gaza just 20 months ago”.
At the end of May, the NGO reported that more than 50,000 children had been killed or injured since October 2023.
World Health Organisation director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus thanked Madonna for her post, saying: “humanity and peace must prevail”.
“Thank you, Madonna, for your compassion, solidarity and commitment to care for everyone caught in the Gaza crisis, especially the children. This is greatly needed,” he wrote on X.
Sky News has approached the Vatican for comment.
Sky News has obtained shocking CCTV from inside the main hospital in the city of Sweida in southern Syria – where our team found more than 90 corpses laid out in the grounds following a week of intense fighting.
Warning this article shows images of a shooting
The CCTV images show men in army fatigues shooting dead a volunteer dressed in medical scrubs at point-blank range while a crowd of other terrified health workers are held at gunpoint with their hands in the air.
The mainly Druze city of Sweida was the scene of nearly a week of violent clashes, looting and executions last month which plunged the new authorities into their worst crisis since the toppling of the country’s former dictator Bashar al Assad.
The new Syrian government troops were accused of partaking in the atrocities they were sent in to quell between the Druze minority and the Arab Bedouin minority groups.
The government troops were forced to withdraw when Israeli jets entered the fray, saying they were protecting the Druze minority and bombed army targets in Sweida and the capital Damascus.
Men in military fatigues enter the hospital.
The hospital volunteer is seen on the floor moments before he was shot
A second man fires with a handgun
Days of bloodletting ensued, with multiple Arab tribes, Druze militia and armed gangs engaging in pitched battles and looting before a ceasefire was agreed.
The government troops then set up checkpoints and barricades encircling Sweida to prevent the Arab tribes re-entering.
The extrajudicial killing captured on CCTV inside the Sweida hospital is corroborated by eyewitnesses we spoke to who were among the group, as well as other medics in the hospital and a number of survivors and patients.
Body bags in the grounds of hospital
The CCTV is date- and time-stamped as mid-afternoon on 16 July and the different camera angles show the men (who tell the hospital workers they are government troops) marauding through the hospital; and in at least one case, smashing the CCTV cameras with the butt of a rifle.
One of the nurses present, who requested anonymity, told us: “They told us if we talked about the shooting or showed any film, we’d be killed too. I thought I was going to die.”
Dr Obeida Abu Fakher, a doctor who was in the operating section at the time, told us: “They told us they were the new Syrian army and interior police. We cannot have peace with these people. They are terrorists.”
Read more:
Inside Sweida: The Syrian city ravaged by sectarian violence
Who are the Druze and who are they fighting in Syria?
Why Israel is getting involved in Syria’s internal fighting
A destroyed ambulance in Sweida
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Multiple patients and survivors told us when we visited the hospital last month that government troops had participated in the horror which swept through Sweida for days but this is the first visual evidence that some took part in atrocities inside the main hospital.
In other images, one of the men can be seen smashing the CCTV camera with the butt of his rifle – and another is wearing a black sweater which appears to be the uniform associated with the country’s interior security.
One survivor calling himself Mustafa Sehnawi, an American citizen from New Jersey, told us: “It’s the government who sent those troops, it’s the government of Syria who killed those people… we need help.”
Mustafa Sehnawi speaks to Sky’s Alex Crawford
A destroyed tank in Sweida
The government responded with a statement from the interior ministry saying they would be investigating the incident which they “denounced and condemned” in the strongest terms.
The statement went on to promise all those involved would be “held accountable” and punished.
The new Syrian president Ahmed al Sharaa is due to attend the United Nations General Assembly next month in New York – the first time a Syrian leader has attended since 1967 – and what happened in Sweida is certain to be among the urgent topics of discussion.
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