The first male survivor of the October 7 Nova festival attack rape to speak out about the ordeal has described the horror he endured.
The man, who is only identified by his Hebrew initials Dalet, told Israel’s Channel 12 news channel: “They were holding you to the ground.”
“You try to resist and they take off your clothes, laugh at you, humiliate you, spit on you, touch your private parts and rape you.”
He said he was trying to flee the Hamas attack on the festival but was caught by fighters from the terror group’s elite Nukhba unit.
“There’s a circle, they laugh and you don’t know what to do at that moment, whether to resist or let the situation go, how to deal with it. It was a very brutal rape,” Dalet said in the interview about the ordeal.
File image of festival-goers fleeing as Hamas gunmen stormed the Nova music festival on October 7 last year
Burned and damaged cars lie along a desert road after an attack by Hamas militants on the Tribe of Nova Trance music festival near Kibbutz Re’im in southern Israel on Saturday, October 7.
Footage showed Nova festival-goers dancing to music as Hamas fighters used paragliders to launch their attack.
Destroyed cars and personal belongings, photographed on October 13, can still be seen on the festival grounds.
He said his attackers only stopped when more Hamas fighters arrived and called out to them.
Dalet described his attackers as “wildly intoxicated” as they celebrated and laughed while brandishing their guns and knives.
She said that although she tried to disconnect from the rape, she also experienced it “very strongly” and added that it was “very difficult.”
Dalet miraculously managed to escape when Israeli forces appeared, forcing Hamas terrorists to retreat to Gaza. Other victims of sexual assault on October 7 were killed before they could speak of the horrors they endured.
“At first, I was very withdrawn; I was much less active,” Dalet told Channel 12, adding that he developed obsessive tendencies such as showering over and over “to wash away” what was happening.
She also said that horrible memories of the rape would resurface during conversations with other people.
Dalet’s report on the rape was handed over to an Israeli police unit that investigates sexual assaults by Hamas fighters on October 7.
She was also one of a dozen survivors who filed a lawsuit against the state of Israel earlier this year, in which the plaintiffs are seeking more than £100m from their government.
Lawyers representing the group of survivors said they feel abandoned by the state and that many of the Nova festival-goers are unable to return to work because of what happened on October 7.
