JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – For the first time since Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, killed hundreds of people, and kidnapped hundreds more, News4JAX spoke to a survivor who described the carnage and her terrifying escape.
“Between five and eight terrorists stood in front of our car and started shooting at us, directly. One of them even made eye contact with my boyfriend. They locked eyes and he started to shoot at us. We saw black souls. No mercy. There was no humanity. He looked him in the eye and started shooting at us,” survivor Danielle Yehiel told News4JAX.
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Yehiel said she and her boyfriend spent nearly four hours trying to evade heavily armed terrorists who were randomly killing people trying to escape a music festival. She spoke about the horror they had to endure to make it to safety.
The attack on the open-air Tribe of Nova music festival is believed to be the worst civilian massacre in Israeli history, with at least 260 dead and more taken hostage. Dozens of Hamas militants who had blown through Israel’s heavily fortified separation fence and crossed into the country from Gaza opened fire on about 3,500 young Israelis who had come together for a joyous night of electronic music to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. Some attendees were drunk or high on drugs, magnifying their confusion and terror.
(Some of the details below are disturbing, so reader discretion is advised)
On the morning of Oct. 7, Yehiel and her boyfriend, Ronald Rozenfeld were attending a large music festival in Re’Im located just miles from the Gaza-Israel border. Suddenly a good time turned into a scary moment in the sky.
“There were huge amounts of missiles coming towards our direction from the Gaza Strip,” she said. “We knew something was going on by the magnitude or number of missiles in the sky. The whole sky was painted red like 4th of July fireworks.”
She said moments later, the festival security guards were ordering everyone to get in their car and drive away because they were in an open field and there was a good chance a missile could strike the festival. She said people were frantically driving to the exit when they heard shooting.
“Massive shooting. We saw the masses of people just running from one place to another. People abandoned their cars,” she said.
She said the gunfire sounded like it was coming from the entrance so, her boyfriend turned the car around and started driving back into the parking lot while attempting to avoid running people over.
“When the terrorists entered the venue, they killed and burned alive people in all the cars at the exit. So, all the exits are blocked. We are basically barricaded in the venue parking area,” Yehiel said. “They were totally ambushed.”
She said their escape to safety took nearly four hours. During that time, they picked up several people who needed help and came under gunfire as they tried to elude gunmen.
“From 7:15 in the morning, we were constantly shot at. There were several times when between five and eight terrorists stood in front of our car and started shooting at us,” Yehiel said.
She said as they were looking for an escape route on an off-beaten path, the sight of death and destruction was everywhere.
“While we are escaping, we see a lot of dead bodies. Burned cars. Body parts,” she said.
They eventually got away, she said, but had no idea they were headed to a village that had been overrun by Hamas terrorists until it was too late.
“Hundreds and hundreds of terrorists just walking on the road like they own it. They were on every vehicle with firearms. Motorcycles, pickup trucks, stolen cars,” she said.
She thought they were going to die.
She said her boyfriend drove alongside the terrorist’s vehicles and they briefly blended in until they could find another road to pull off on and drive to safety.
“We are in one piece which is not something we thought we would be,” she said Friday. “Mentally, we are a wreck. I lost two of my best friends.”
Yehiel said she later learned one of her female friends was nearly kidnapped after barricading herself, but the terrorists let her go because they had kidnapped so many people that there was not enough room for one more person on the truck.