A man managed to escape the massacre at a music festival by Hamas only to find out his cousin had not made it.
The two Israelis were among the estimated thousands who attended the Supernova event where organisers promised a "journey of unity and love".
Ofek Mishal, 24, told The Evening Standard how he, his friends and his 23-year-old cousin Amit Magnezi were “dancing and laughing” before the music suddenly stopped on Saturday morning.
Hamas had started its deadly attack, firing thousands of rockets into Israel and unleashing gunmen on the party, less than four miles from the east of Gaza.
Ofek was not with Amit when ravers started to flee so the pair stayed on the phone with each other while Ofek and a friend ran to their car.
They stopped to help people who had been shot and eventually found a policeman, before noticing a vehicle carrying “15 men with guns” coming towards them.
“At the start, we thought it was the IDF, but then they started to shoot at us,” Ofek said, “the policeman I was with moved about one metre away from me and then he was dead.”
The bartender, who lives near Tel Aviv, joined others who had begun running into the woods, with “terrorists shooting at them” and eventually lost his phone in all the chaos.
Ofek thinks he hid in the woods for seven hours - to the sound of contant shooting and surrounded by dead bodies.
“They don’t care about anything,” he said, “they come to kill, they want to kill. I saw smiles on the faces of terrorists when they killed people.”
Ofek and around 20 other people ended up escaping together.
Many of them had served in the Israeli military, as is compulsory for over-18s in the country, and had been trained to identify different guns by the sound of their shooting. They used these skills to guide them towards the IDF, where they would be safe.
“The whole time I told myself that I need to be strong because I want to see my family and friends again,” the former soldier said.
Ofek’s loved ones had no idea whether he was alive until he finally returned home on Sunday.
It took two days for them to discover Amit had been killed by a grenade while hiding from Hamas militants at the festival. Amit was a DJ who loved music and “wanted to be famous all around the world”.
Ofek said that in his three years of service to the military, he had “never” seen Hamas fighters “like this”
He described “feeling all the emotions you can feel right now” but is said he is “trying to smile and not be sad because it’s not the time to be sad, we need to be strong now – all the Israelis and Jews of the world”.
He went on: “I want all the world to know what happened to us. I want all the world to know that the country of Israel is strong.
“Me and my family will never leave. This is my country – we don’t have anywhere to go. This is the country Jews live in and here we stay.”
At least 260 people, mostly thought to be under 30, were reportedly killed at the festival while several others were taken hostage.
Those killed included Irish-Israeli citizen Kim Damti, 22, it has been confirmed.
Israel says 97 people from around the country are being held captive in Gaza, where Israeli authorities have unleashed a relentless siege cutting off supplies of food, water, electricity and medicine.
There have been numerous international calls for humanitarian corridors to be established for the 2.3 million people who live in Gaza to be given access to aid and escape routes.
Energy Minister Israel Katz posted on social media on Wednesday: “Humanitarian aid to Gaza? No electrical switch will be turned on, no water hydrant will be opened and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli abductees are returned home.”
