On October 7, 3,000 Hamas operatives, accompanied by some Gazans who did not belong to the terror group but wanted to take part in the murderous fun, smashed into Israel in cars, on motorbikes, on paragliders. They proceeded to rape, torture, mutilate, and murder 1,200 people. Of that number, 364 were murdered in the field where the Nova Music Festival had been held the previous night; the rest of the victims were murdered in 22 kibbutzim. The torment for those who survived has not ended. It seems that an unusually high number have killed themselves, but the estimates vary widely. More on this continuing horror upon horror can be found here: “About 50 Survivors of Nova Music Festival Committed Suicide, Survivor Tells Israeli Lawmakers,” Algemeiner, April 16, 2024:
Following the Hamas-led massacre at the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7, about fifty survivors have committed suicide, revealed Guy Ben Shimon.
I need to inject a note of caution here. The Jerusalem Post has reported here that the Israeli Health Ministry said on April 16 that it does not know how many survivors of the Nova Music Festival have taken their own lives:
A statement released by the ministry on Tuesday read, “The data on the number of suicides and the number of hospitalizations among survivors of the Nova festival – are not known to the Health Ministry and the mental health system and are incorrect.”
Head of the mental health division at the Health Ministry, Dr. Gilad Bodenheimer, noted that “the rumors about the number of suicides and the number of hospitalizations among survivors of the Nova festival are not true.”
He further stated that based on an examination “conducted with the Nova community association, as well as with other parties that take part in the treatment of the Nova survivors, it emerged that such data is unknown.”
It is uncertain, then, if there have been fifty, or thirty, or twenty suicides among the survivors of the murders at the Nova Music Festival field. But I will report on what two of those survivors testified to the Knesset. Again, from Algemeiner:
Ben Shimon, a survivor of the massacre, spoke on Tuesday at a parliamentary hearing for a State Audit Commission on the treatment of the survivors of Oct. 7.
“Few people know, but there have been almost 50 suicides among the Nova survivors. This number, which was true two months ago, may have increased since,” Ben Shimon said, emphasizing that many of his friends who escaped the massacre could not recover from what they had experienced.
“There are many survivors who had to be forcibly hospitalized due to their psychological state. My friends are not getting out of bed, neither am I,” he described their condition since the Oct. 7 attack.
“I am practically unable to do anything. I had to get a dog to help me survive in my daily life. The goal for all of us is to return to work and function normally, but we cannot do it without adequate help,” Ben Shimon added.
The parliamentary hearing focused on alleged failures of the state bodies towards the survivors of Oct. 7. There were complaints about the difficulties, notably bureaucratic, that the survivors faced in getting their post-traumatic stress disorder recognized, as well as in receiving the needed care.
“Why should I constantly prove what I experienced? Why am I forced to go back to the details of what I experienced for them to believe me?” Naama Eitan, another survivor of the music festival, asked during the hearing.
Must they report again and again on what they witnessed? The rapes, the gory mutilations, the murders of their friends, their own terrified struggles to escape that left them, in the days and months following, half-crazed with despair and survivor’s guilt?
“I participated in a study that monitored my pulse and other parameters and revealed how bad my health is. I sleep on average two hours a night. Each morning at seven o’clock, I relive the moments when I was hidden in the bushes with terrorists passing by me. I can no longer move on my own, I need to be constantly accompanied,” she described….
That is the trauma of terror that won’t subside, won’t let Naama Eitan, and so many others, sleep more than a few hours a night. They keep rerunning the same ghastly scenes in their mind’s eye. Why should we have expected them to be able to slough it off? Instead of joy at having survived, many of those survivors suffer now from Survivor’s Guilt — why was he, or she, murdered, and not I?
The world expects the Israelis to “get over it.” Too many of us are insufficiently sympathetic. Too many do not realize that the torment from the Hamas attack did not end on October 8. It continues, and for some it has been too much to bear; there is no conceivable solace, and those who are unable to deal with it, take to their beds with severe depression, or in some cases, do away with themselves. These last are the people who survived the massacres, but cannot survive the memory of the massacres. And for those who remain alive, the mental torment will continue long after Hamas has been dismantled. We do not know how many so far have killed themselves; Ben Shimon testified that there were about fifty, but the Ministry of Health says the number of such “survivor suicides” is still unknown.
Try to imagine what life must be like for those survivors, not only those who saw the rapes and murders at the Nova Music Festival, but those who witnessed the even more horrifying events that took place at the kibbutzim. They saw, from their tremulous concealments, babies and small children burned to death, women whose breasts were sliced off and then used by Hamas men to play catch, men with their genitalia cut off and their eyes gouged out, while they were still alive, and only then were they put to death. These were their relatives, their friends, their spouses and siblings. The horrors of what they saw, and the guilt of having been spared, has proven too much for some.
Whether there have been fifty suicides, or ten, any number above one, should make us exclaim “As many as that?” Or should we say instead, as few as that?
mgoldberg says
Putting on that ‘festival’ with almost all being high and if not, then dancing all night to the idealistic peace for all, love for all, mood of those who attended, must have left an unending scarring for those who literally ran for their very lives, for their souls, from these ghouls of Gazan Islam. This is what needs to be shown across the globe and not to merely justify going into Gaza. This homicidism, this evil torturing of any who come into their path was the meaning of those self annointed oppresses Gazans, who did what they did and received uulatiing adoration from those Gazans who treasured this massacre in the name of Allah.
gravenimage says
That the Jihadists raped and murdered Israelis *at a peace concert* shows just perverse they are.
SC says
Maybe the victims (Direct or indirect) should get a say In the response and everyone else on the planet needs to keep their damned noses out.
IMHO there should not be one single fighting age male left alive in Gaza.
The Istanbulian says
Funny how no one demands the Palestinians get over the nakba. But Jews need to get over the holocaust and farhud and all the other expulsions.
Blacks can’t get over 400 years of generational trauma, but Jews need to let 2,000 years of generational trauma go.
Also, compare Israel’s health ministry with the gazan health ministry’s statements.
SC says
Those with the least ability, or will, to provide for themselves often believe everyone else owes them. When in fact most, if not all, of the time they are the ones causing their own poor circumstances.
I have to add we who originate from the UK, even though we won, have still not forgiven the French for Agincourt (1415) and love to remind them of it with the two finger salute. However the French got of their asses and got back to self sufficiency.
gravenimage says
I don’t think that too many Britons are still unforgiving of the French for Agincourt. I have many British relatives and they have long since gotten over it. My mother and aunt both studied French in school, and both wanted to help France during WWII.
Ilya says
100%
Shalom says
Excellent comment.
Ray Jarman says
How could any responsible person expect someone who has experienced the brutality of these people just get over it as some have said. Even soldiers in war and a friend of mine who was held captive in Tehran when the Embassy was attacked by the ayatollah’s goons had nightmares even ten years later. I have another close friend who has nightmares of events that occurred many years before when he was part of a team that helped locate and assist people after they were caught in a forest fire or being in a horrible accident. He still has nightmares and very often unable to sleep. To expect the poor souls who were able to survive the October massacre to as the saying goes, “Just get over it,” is ludicrous. I just cannot imagine the terror that these poor innocent people endure each day much less at night. My thought is to keep them as part of my prayers each night.
Rufolino says
How I admire you for keeping these people in your prayers Ray.
I am left weeping in impotence reading this article. I know about complex-PTSD.
Ray Jarman says
Thank you Rufolino for your thoughtful reply.
S says
Agreed.
Amen.
gravenimage says
+1
dumbledoresarmy says
Perhaps the only people who would be able to help them would be the remaining Shoah survivors.
Vera levy says
The only thing what would help these people that the world would believe them, and not condemn Israel on the war in Gaza
All of that was initiated by Iran, the protests all over the world as well, are initiated by the revolutionary guards of Iran
And all those stupid people screaming from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free or seeking the genocide of the Jewish people
And the Biden administration want to make a deal with the Iranians
The American public is deafening silence
dumbledoresarmy says
I totally believe the testimony of the Israeli survivors of the 7th October 2023 jihad ghazi raid on Israel. I have read many of their accounts, as given in ‘Jerusalem Post’ and elsewhere.
that horrible assault was just like so many other similar assaults that Muslims have carried out against non-Muslim communities throughout the entire history of Islam! And in the agonies of the survivors, as they give their testimony, we gain an insight into what millions of others have suffered and are suffering.
I pray for the deep healing of the Israeli survivors.. and I totally support the IDF campaign in Gaza. I said as much, in a card of condolence and support that I sent to the Israeli embassy here in Australia, not long after October 7th.
I am absolutely horrified by all the evil and/or deluded people who are shrieking in support of Hamas.
gravenimage says
Yes–those supporting the horrific Jihad terrorists are all too rife in the West.
somehistory says
You can’t “hear” the American public because the American public doesn’t get access to the microphones.
What does make it to the ‘hearing’ of those who listen, shows that the majority who are not ‘heard,’ do not approve of what hamas, iran, hezbollah, etc. are doing.
Just as Americans don’t “hear” from Israelis, except for your government.