Festival massacre as rescuers find 260 bodies at site where revellers ‘first realised something was wrong when a siren started going off before Hamas cut the power and started opening fire’

At least 260 bodies have been found by rescuers after Hamas opened fire on Israeli partygoers at a music festival near the Gaza Strip yesterday morning, with emergency workers calling the scene a ‘massacre’. 

Terrified festivalgoers first realised something was wrong when a siren began blaring at dawn warning of rockets. Hamas terrorists then cut the electricity before firing rockets and blasting gunshots from jeeps they drove onto the site. 

Yesterday Israel suffered its deadliest attack in decades, as Hamas rampaged through the country’s towns reportedly killing 700 people and abducting dozens more. Since then fierce fighting has broken out killing people on both sides. 

The Israeli rescue service Zaka tonight said at least 260 bodies have been removed from the festival site.  

Music lovers attending the Supernova Sukkot Festival were amongst those targeted, with Palestinian militants storming onto the site of the all-night trance music rave near Kibbutz Re’im, close to the Gaza Strip, as part of its surprise attack. 

Yaniv, an emergency worker who was amongst those medics who raced to the scene told public broadcaster Kan News he saw ‘at least 200 bodies of Israelis in the area’.

He said: ‘There are at least 200 bodies of Israelis in the area I was in. It was a massacre.

 ‘I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. It was a planned ambush. As people came out of the emergency exits, squads of terrorists were waiting for them there and just started picking them off.’

Video footage shows the terrified youngsters fleeing on foot over the sand to their cars, screaming as shots are fired. Some are seen holding hands as they run away while others shout ‘go, go, go’. 

One partygoer named Ortel said the rockets fired were quickly followed by gunshots being fired from jeeps full of gunmen. 

She told the BBC: ‘They turned off the electricity and suddenly out of nowhere they [militants] come inside with gunfire, opening fire in every direction.

‘Fifty terrorists arrived in vans, dressed in military uniforms. They fired bursts, and we reached a point where everyone stopped their vehicles and started running.’

As people tried to run through the sand or drive off in their cars, more shots were fired.  

Ortel said she hid in a bush where she watched ‘masses of wounded people thrown around’. 

Meanwhile festival-goer Adam Barel told Haaretz that while they had been aware of the chance of rocket fire, the gunshots came as a shock.

He told the Israeli newspaper that he was among those fleeing to their cars but shots were being fired so he decided it was better to run.  ‘People were hit. We hid. Everyone ran somewhere else,’ he said.

Amongst those hiding was Gili Yoskovich, who was forced to shelter beneath a fruit tree in the middle of a field shaking for three hours as bullets flew past her. She hid until she heard people speaking Hebrew and was rescued by Israeli soldiers. 

The mother described how young people – whose night celebrating the end of the Sukkot religious holiday had turned to terror – were dying all around her and on the road as Hamas militants went ‘tree to tree’ on a killing spree. 

‘I saw people were dying all around. I was very quiet. I didn’t cry, I didn’t do anything,’ she told the BBC.

‘I was… breathing, saying: ‘OK, I’m going to die. It’s OK, just breathe, just close your eyes’.’

A number of people who attended the peaceful festival in the desert, that coincided with the Jewish festival of Sukkot, are missing – including Noa Argamani and her boyfriend Avi Nathan. 

Heartbreaking footage showed the 25-year-old student screaming ‘Don’t kill me! N, no, no’ as she was forced onto the back of a motorcycle just metres away from her helpless boyfriend who was held at gunpoint. Both remain missing. 

Widely shared on social media, the footage of Noa’s kidnapping is almost too distressing to bear. ‘Imagine what it is like for her family,’ said her university roommate, Amir Moadi.  

They found out she had been snatched only when they chanced upon the footage online. 

Earlier today her inconsolable father, Yaacov Argamani, sobbed as he voiced his fears for her safety, saying: ‘she was so petrified, so scared’.

Speaking through tears, he said: ‘I was hoping this is a mistake that it’s not true. And then in the hospital a guy asked me if I wanted to see. I said yes and then I know for sure it is Noa… she was so petrified, so scared.’

He then begins to uncontrollably sob. ‘I was always so protective but in this moment I couldn’t protect her,’ he told Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 News.

‘All my life since she was born I have tried to protect and hug her, support and love her. I wish I could at this difficult moment at least encourage her or say something to her.’

Noa’s aunt, Yaffe Ohad, said they were ‘crazy with worry’. She said: ‘We know that Noa was kidnapped, probably in the hours of the beginning of the fighting.’

Avi’s brother Moshe also first heard of his brother going missing after seeing the video on social media.

He told Channel 12: ‘We knew that my brother Avinathan and his girlfriend Noa Argamani were at the party and we started to worry. 

‘Their phones were unavailable and after a few hours an emergency team contacted us and said they had seen a video of them being kidnapped in the direction of the Strip.’

Moshe said he found the video on social media seeing his brother, who he described as ‘a big guy’, being held by five people who were he presumed were taking ‘him towards the strip’.

The fears of Noa and Avi’s relatives are mirrored in the faces of countless other families who have no idea where their loved ones are alive or whether they are safe after being taken hostage by terrorists. 

One of those captured at the festival was 30-year-old German tattoo artist Shani Louk.

Her lifeless, half-naked body was paraded on the back of a Hamas pick-up trick as militants sat on top of her and jeered following the violent incursion.  

She filmed splayed in the back of a truck, with one leg at an unnatural angle, terrorists sitting around it and supporters of the group cheering, running alongside and spitting on her.

Hamas said the body was a female Israeli soldier but last night it was confirmed to be Shani by her cousin Tomasina Weintraub-Louk.

Tomasina told DailyMail.com that the family recognized her distinctive leg tattoos and dreadlocked hair.

Her mother, Ricarda, released a heartbreaking video begging for help to find out what happened to her daughter.

Holding a picture of Shani on her mobile phone, she said: ‘This morning my daughter, Shani Nicole Louk, a German citizen, was kidnapped with a group of tourists in southern Israel by Palestinian Hamas.

‘We were sent a video in which I could clearly see our daughter unconscious in the car with the Palestinians and them driving around the Gaza Strip.

‘I ask you to send us any help or any news. Thank you very much.’

Last night it was also reported that Doron Asher, 34, and her two daughters, Raz, five, and Aviv, three, were among Israeli civilians taken hostage by Hamas gunmen and held captive in Gaza. 

As the search continues to find the missing, the death toll in Israel has risen to 700, according to Israeli media sites, with 2,300 being injured. More than 300 have been killed in Gaza as Israeli airstrikes pound the territory.

Hamas has been proscribed as a terror group in its entirety in the UK since 2021. 

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak condemned the attack on Israel today, declaring ‘terrorism will not prevail’ and pledged ‘steadfast support’ to Benjamin Netanyahu as the death toll continues to rise. 

It comes as the family of 20-year-old Nathanel Young, a Briton serving with the Israeli Defence Services, said he had been killed on the Gaza border on Saturday.

Two other UK nationals – 26-year-old Jake Marlowe, who went to the same London school as Mr Young and photographer Danny Darlington – are also thought to be missing.

In a statement delivered from Chequers, the Prime Minister said: ‘The scenes that we’ve seen in Israel over the past 36 hours are truly horrifying.

‘I want to express my absolute solidarity for the people of Israel now is not a time for equivocation, and I’m unequivocal. Hamas, and the people who support Hamas, are fully responsible for this appalling act of terror, for the murder of civilians and for the kidnapping of innocent people, including children.’

Mr Sunak said he had spoken with the Israeli PM earlier on Sunday to offer the UK’s ongoing support, adding: ‘Terrorism will not prevail.’

Asked what assistance is being provided to British citizens caught up in the conflict, he told reporters: ‘This is a dangerous and fast-moving situation on the ground. And I know that there will be families who are anxious about their loved ones.

‘I want to reassure them that the Foreign Office and the Government here is in close contact with our Israeli counterpart to establish the status of any British nationals on the ground.’

The murders carried out by Hamas terrorists, however, were applauded at a left wing event, called The World Transforms, on the sidelines of the Labour conference today.

Clapping for the bloody violence broke out amongst audience members at a meeting to mark 75 years since the Nakba or ‘catastrophe’ that led to the creation of the Jewish state.

It came as one of the speakers at the event said she was ‘honoured’ to be speaking at such a ‘historic moment’. 

Yasmin Elsouda, an activist and member of the Palestinian Youth Movement, told the audience: ‘I’m honoured to be speaking at such an historic moment, certainly in my lifetime, in our struggle…’

The event is not officially linked to Labour but was created while Jeremy Corbyn was the party leader.

Corbyn, who is a still a Labour member despite being kicked out of the parliamentary party, refused to directly condemn Hamas when he was quizzed by reporters today.

Instead the ex-Labour leader pointed to a statement he issued yesterday over the violence during tetchy exchanges with journalists.

‘Why are you interrputing me?,’ Mr Corbyn said. ‘Yesterday I sent out a statement calling for a ceasefire, calling for peace and calling for an end to the occupation of Palestine which, of course, is fundamentally the background to the whole issue.

‘Obviously all attacks are wrong.’

Keir Starmer condemned the ‘appalling’ atrocities in Israel today as he faces pressure to act against Labour MPs and activists who make excuses for Hamas.

The Labour leader decried the ‘acts of terrorism’ as he struggles to stop hard-left figures including Jeremy Corbyn derailing his pre-election conference in Liverpool.

In a BBC interview, Sir Keir said the indiscriminate launching of missiles, slaughter of civilians and hostage-taking in Israel was a ‘deliberate’ attempt to set back the peace process.

As the fighting in the Middle East continues into the night, the Metropolitan Police announced it had ramped up ‘reassurance patrols’ in London.

Suella Braverman warned that the ‘full force of the law’ will be used against those who support Hamas or ‘intimidate’ Jews in Britain.

She posted on X this morning to say the government was doing ‘everything necessary’ to protect Jewish communities.

‘Whenever Israel is attacked, Islamists and other racists use Israeli defensive measures as a pretext to stir up hatred against British Jews,’ she wrote.

‘There must be zero tolerance for anti-semitism or glorification of terrorism on the streets of Britain. 

‘I expect the police to use the full force of the law against displays of support for Hamas, other proscribed terrorist groups or attempts to intimidate British Jews.’ 

The Home Secretary’s warning comes as images and videos of people waving Palestine flags and celebrating the bloody assault in the capital were shared on social media.

Rachel Riley, the Countdown presenter who is Jewish, posted a video on her X account, which showed a number of people celebrating the Hamas atrocity outside a café in Acton, West London.

She tweeted: ‘People have been brutally murdered and kidnapped and there are people in London dancing.’ 

On London’s Edgware Road, nicknamed the capital’s ‘Arab Street’, cars were draped with the Palestinian flag and horns blaring as if there was a football match victory.

Posting a video, a social media user said: ‘Islamists in London celebrating the deaths and captures of innocent civilians. Monsters.’

Motorists were also seen in other parts of London waving the Palestinian flag in celebration.

The latest statistics on hate crimes, released this week, show a rise in religious-based hate crimes in 2022-23 in the UK. 

Jewish communities are the second-most hit by religious-based hate crimes, accounting for 17 percent of all those recorded. 

Islamophobia results in the highest number of religious-based hate crimes per year, and made up 39 percent of them, the latest data shows.