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As doubts about what occurred on Oct. 7 in southern Israel proceed to swirl, folks within the Jewish neighborhood in Israel say the shortage of perception about their tales and what they’ve skilled has been including to the collective ache and trauma they’ve suffered and are nonetheless struggling to this present day.
Noam Ben David, 27, an artist and a survivor of the Supernova music competition terror attack on Oct. 7, 2023, stated in a telephone interview, “Israelis are crying about how people won’t believe the stories. All of Israel is crying about that.”
Speaking to Fox News Digital, the Israel-based Ben David recounted her beautiful story of survival — and the way she remembered having a foreboding feeling earlier than her boyfriend, David Newman, 25, picked her up at 1:30 a.m. that day to go to the Supernova music competition within the Negev desert in Israel, about three miles from the Gaza-Israel barrier.
It was Oct. 7, the celebratory vacation of Simchat Torah, which additionally fell on Shabbat, a day of relaxation.
On that day, Jewish folks begin to learn the Torah from the start. Yet Oct. 7, 2023, as most of the world already is aware of, changed into one of the darkest days in Jewish historical past.
At 2:30 a.m., the younger couple arrived on the competition. Newman, who managed venues in Tel Aviv, helped his artist girlfriend arrange to attract on the occasion, she informed Fox News Digital. She remembers even at present how comfortable she felt to be dancing to the music with him.
They had been relationship for a bit over a yr. She was in love together with his kindhearted and fun-loving nature, which attracted folks to him, she stated.
They’d lately returned to Israel after touring for over three months all through Southeast Asia, and so they acknowledged acquainted faces from their journey within the crowd. Ben David stated the environment was “like one big family and good energy.”
At round 6 a.m., the couple headed towards a much bigger stage to bounce with their mates.
She stated the wonder of the occasion that morning was mirrored within the dawn.
She thought she heard fireworks — however the thunderous claps had been bombs.
“It’s the perfect time… Everyone is glowing from the sun, everything is pretty. It was just the best feeling ever.”
When she walked over to get her sun shades from her bag, a buddy of hers informed her to search for on the sky. She thought she heard fireworks — however the thunderous claps had been bombs.
Someone screamed to cease the music and “just run.”
The couple obtained into Newman’s automotive, however there was an excessive amount of visitors, she stated — so he pulled over. He obtained some water for her and laid one thing down subsequent to a tree for her to take a seat on, and he or she started singing a tune to him about fireworks.
“At that time, it was funny,” she stated, “and I needed to have a little bit of humor to calm myself. We didn’t realize what happened at the time. We said, ‘OK, it’s going to be like every time — it’s a couple of bombs, and then the army’s going to come.'”
She added, “We didn’t realize that it was going to be actual war — and that there were actually Hamas people with guns.”
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A couple of minutes later, a person got here operating towards them, shouting at them to run.
Terrorists had been capturing at folks who had been caught in visitors, and so they heard the sharp blast of automated gunfire. People began fleeing from their automobiles and operating towards an open area.
‘History repeats itself’
On that day of Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists descended on the site of the Supernova music festival and raped, murdered and burned alive 364 civilians in attendance, most of whom were under age 30.
About 40 people of the approximately 4,000 attendees were abducted and taken to Gaza. Some 1,200 people were killed in Israel that day, and about 130 of the over 240 people who were abducted are still in Gaza.
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While there is denial about the tragic events of Oct. 7, a recent YouGov/Economist poll also found that some 20% of Americans ages 19 to 29 believe that “the Holocaust is a myth,” and over 20% think it was exaggerated.
“David took my hand so we could run faster.”
Sheryl Silver Ochoyan, project director of Echoes & Reflections at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, has noticed the parallels.
“The Holocaust is the best documented case of genocide that has ever happened in the world — the Germans kept a lot of records. History just repeats itself,” she added.
And “those who commit genocide always deny it.”
With Hamas terrorists everywhere on the morning of Oct. 7, Noam Ben David said she saw people dropping to the ground after they were shot.
“David took my hand so we could run faster, and then I fell on my face,” she told Fox News Digital.
“He laid down with me, and he told me, ‘It’s OK, just breathe, and whenever you feel right, we’ll stand up after which run. Just relax and it is OK.”
She stated she informed herself, “‘I’m not going to give up if he’s not going to give up on me, and he’s cheering me up. I need to cheer myself up and get up.’ So I got up and we ran.”
They discovered an space the place two large metallic trash containers had been positioned, each open on prime. Nearby, grenades and bombs had been going off incessantly.
“I’m not going to give up if he’s not going to give up on me.”
Ben David stated she informed her boyfriend, “We’re going to get inside of one of those trash containers. I’m not going to stay outside — we’re going to die.”
People had been already hiding inside each the containers and Ben David stated she instinctively felt they need to get into the container on the left.
(At a later level, terrorists threw a grenade excessive of the opposite container, and everybody inside was killed. Said Ben David, “It was a miracle that we didn’t get into that one.”)
‘Really scared’
For over 4 hours, the couple stayed within the container with 16 different folks. They stored their heads down, making an attempt to be as silent and inconspicuous as doable.
Through a crack within the door, Ben David stated she noticed Hamas terrorists with weapons screaming in Arabic exterior.
“This is a question about death or staying alive,” she informed Fox News Digital. “I was really nervous, and David was all the time holding my leg, and moving his hand to calm me down. I was really scared.”
She despatched their location to her sister — and shortly earlier than his personal battery ran out, Newman texted a buddy of his within the military to ship assist.
She stated she recalled that “at one point, a girl raised her head up, and screamed, ‘They saw me!’”
She stated David “took me with his hand, and he pushed me more inside the container so I could hide inside the trash bags.”
Ketchup spilled out onto her head, she stated, and other people had been mendacity on prime of her. She might really feel the reverberations from the gunfire as the terrorists drew nearer.
Still, her boyfriend was preserving guard and making an attempt to calm everybody down. He assured her that the IDF could be there in quarter-hour to assist them.
“I wanted to get up and help David, but I knew if I got up I would be dead.”
Suddenly, the terrorists had been there. They stormed into the container.
“I heard a shout, and then I heard ‘Allahu Akbar!’ and then I heard the first shot. I heard David try to breathe. I could hear his last breath. Then I heard a bunch of automatic shots everywhere… I was praying [in Hebrew], “Please, God, hear me.”
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She added, “I needed to stand up and assist David, however I knew if I obtained up I might be lifeless.”
Suddenly, the young artist said she felt “the worst ache ever. I can really feel it in my head. I can really feel it in my bones. I obtained shot on the left aspect of my hip.” Fortunately, the bullet that hit her did not remain lodged in her body.
She now realized that practically everyone around her had been killed, including a girl who lay motionless beside her. Some people had been shot multiple times.
In shock and refusing to accept that her boyfriend had been killed, Ben David said, “I raised my head and I screamed to David. I screamed. I begged him to reply me, and he didn’t.”
Someone told her that he had been shot in the chest.
‘Bright, like a light’
Two IDF soldiers now entered the container with guns — she recognized them. Bleeding, she called out to them as the adrenaline racing through her numbed some of the pain, she said.
She was moved up to the front of the container, where she saw her boyfriend.
“Even although he was lifeless, it was essentially the most stunning factor I ever noticed,” she said about David. “It was like an angel… He had this halo. It was shiny, like a light-weight.”
Newman’s text to his friend, which provided their location, saved many lives, Ben David believes.
Outside the container, IDF soldiers laid her down on the field with the other people who were injured, as shots were still being fired. The soldiers had to fight off terrorists while they drove her to an army unit.
Ever since that terrible day, Ben David has undergone two surgeries. She was treated at the Beit Loewenstein rehabilitative center in Ra’anana, Israel, she said.
She feels like her one true love is still with her, coaching her through the pain.
She also recently started walking using crutches after having been in a wheelchair for several months.
She is hoping to make a full recovery, she said.
“I’m going to bounce once more, and I’ll dance for David,” she informed Fox News Digital.
“I used to be in heaven, and hell got here and adjusted all the things about my life, about Israel, about everybody’s lives. This is the man I used to be presupposed to get married to and have kids with.”
She stated she appears like her beloved remains to be along with her, teaching her by means of the ache.
‘Murdered because he was Jewish’
David Newman’s siblings shared poignant thoughts and heartbreaking remembrances of their brother who was taken from them.
Younger brother Dvir Newman, age 23, described David as his best friend and “literally an angel,” someone who always went out of his way to console other people in distress.
Noah Newman, 30, David’s older brother, talked about how a lot his brother liked life.
“He was the happiest particular person you would meet. You might put him in a quiet room all by himself, and also you’d discover him dancing.”
Noah Newman also said David extended kindness to everyone. “He was a really actual and trustworthy particular person. He hated when folks would gossip or speak behind folks’s backs.”
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David’s sister, Batya Newman-Sprei, 31, said her brother fought to be transferred to a combat unit when he served in the IDF from 2017 to 2020. “He was comfortable to do it,” she said.
She said that the siblings’ loss of their mother to cancer over seven years ago made them extremely close as siblings. “When David obtained murdered, it was even tougher than then it will usually be,” she said.
“He risked his life. He stayed cool. He helped folks the entire time.”
Jeff Seidel — whose daughter, Moriah, is married to David’s older brother, Gavriel Newman, 28 — said David was like his own son.
“I’m embarrassed that I may need teased him and joked with him an excessive amount of,” Seidel said. “I did not understand till now that I had a giant tzaddik [a righteous person] sitting subsequent to me.”
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He added, “He risked his life. He stayed cool. He helped folks the entire time. While [the terrorists] had been capturing, he knew how to answer the scenario, whereas most individuals would in all probability get nervous and freak out.”
Seidel added, “He was murdered as a result of he was Jewish, like everyone else [at] that celebration.”
Although he is still grieving, Seidel said he knows that David Newman is in heaven.
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“[This is] referred to as in Hebrew a Kiddush Hashem. You had been killed for the sanctity of God.”
On Feb. 20, Jeff Seidel’s daughter Moriah — married to David’s older brother — gave birth to a baby boy.
They named him David Ori — which means “my gentle” in Hebrew.
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