How an Israeli ‘love and peace’ music festival ended in massacre after Hamas attack

The music festival was one of the first targets for Hamas militants as they launched their unprecedented and coordinated attack on Israel, sending panicked partygoers scrambling.

Nick Zhiharev was one of thousands of Israelis who attended an overnight music festival near Israel’s border with Gaza. The event was billed as a celebration of “friends, love and peace.”

It ended in a massacre.

Just after dawn on Saturday, Zhiharev spotted what he initially thought were fireworks streaming across the sky.

“But then I told my friend, ‘I think we’re getting bombed.’ And then as soon as I said that, the music cut off,” he said.

Zhiharev and others mostly shrugged it off. Israelis are used to seeing rockets fired from Gaza, the vast majority of which are shot down by Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system.

Zhiharev, who spent several years in Toronto as a teenager, said he wasn’t too concerned. Until he heard the gunfire.

“You could hear (the bullets) ricocheting off the cars. It was like a Call of Duty scene. There was shooting everywhere,” Zhiharev said.

“I felt like prey running away from a predator.”