28 June 2024 Punjab Khabarnama : In the months since Hamas’ surprise attack sent them scattering across fields or hiding in desert brush, thousands of survivors of a massacre at a trance festival in Israel have come together as a community to heal.They have found solace in massage therapy, ice baths, yoga or surfing with the only people who could truly understand what they had been through. And they have built a robust support network for themselves as the Israel-Hamas war rages on and authorities struggle to provide services to devastated communities.
For some, the way back has come through dancing again.
On Thursday, thousands of people attended the Nova Healing Concert in Tel Aviv, the first Tribe of Nova mass gathering since the Oct. 7 attack.
“We understood that people needed to be together, and we’re a community that takes care of itself,” said Omri Sasa, one of the founders of the Tribe of Nova, which organized the festival last October. “I’m in trauma, and I wanted to be with people who also went through this.”
He was among around 3,000 people dancing through the night in a field just miles from Gaza when rockets lit up the sky at 6:29 a.m. Heavily armed Palestinian militants rampaged through the festival, killing at least 364 people and taking more than 40 hostage. Many of them are still held in Gaza.
Hila Fakliro, a communications student who was tending bar at the festival, escaped by zigzagging through fields, hiding and running for over five hours, until she reached the safety of a village some 20 kilometers away. Six of her friends were killed and another three were taken hostage.
“Someone asked me if I can dance again, and in the beginning I said no,” she said. At a memorial in January for one of her friends, she tried to dance, had a panic attack, and then tried again. “I was crying and dancing at the same time,” she said.
But after attending events organized by Nova survivors, she was once again able to find solace in the trance music she loves. At a recent event, she slid into an ice bath while others attended yoga and art classes in a cluster of tents.
Omri Kohavi, 35, one of Nova’s founding organizers, said they had felt abandoned by Israel’s security forces, who took hours to respond to the Oct. 7 attack. Now director of community programming for the Nova Foundation, Kohavi said organizers realized within days that “if we don’t care for ourselves, no one else will.”
Survivors began to gather to deal with the trauma they had experienced together. On the first day, 500 showed up. That number doubled the following day. After three months, they shifted to weekly Community Day events and encouraged survivors to return to their regular lives and jobs.
At those events in Tel Aviv, survivors meet with therapists, lawyers, social workers or just spend time with one another. The Nova Foundation connects survivors to opportunities for horse therapy, surfing and massage. Some have completed trainings in peer therapy to help others, and the organization recently began providing support to the families of those killed.
Earlier this month, Israel rescued four hostages who were snatched from the festival, which Sasa said “was the biggest present anyone could imagine.” The daytime rescue killed over 270 Palestinians.
The gathering Thursday was to raise money to support the volunteer network and to call for the release of the remaining hostages. To appeal to a broader audience, it featured electronic music and mainstream artists as well as the Nova mainstay, trance.