Half-poured bottles of Johnnie Walker Red whisky, vodka and arak sat on the bar. In the camping area, some chairs were still beside pitched tents, as if their owners would be back soon from dancing.
But in the eucalyptus groves beyond, dozens of abandoned cars were testament to the brutal attack that turned the Supernova festival from an all-night party to a byword for horror.
Some were pierced by bullet holes, others burned out. Most were still surrounded by scattered piles of clothes and makeup, tobacco and camping mats, coolers and other festival detritus packed on Friday in happy anticipation, and scattered after Hamas gunmen turned the party into a massacre.
At least 260 people were killed among the festival tents and in the fields and roads surrounding it on Saturday morning, part of the deadliest attack on Israel in decades.
It took hours for security forces to reach festival-goers who were hiding or trying to flee and, even after days of fighting, the area is not entirely secure, and Israeli forces are on edge.
On Thursday evening two shots cracked over the festival site, and soldiers arrested a man they said was a terrorist suspect who was carrying a knife. Hours earlier, the area had been shut to media as Israeli forces dealt with a “suspected infiltration”.
Lt Col Richard Hecht, international spokesperson for the Israel Defence Forces, told journalists at the festival site that the “majority” of Hamas attackers have been killed or captured.
“It is better than it was, there were terrorists around here all over. Now it is slowly, slowly stabilising. But there are still singular events, and everybody is also very edgy.”
Gaza is less than 5km from the festival site, and the now-regular thump of artillery and airstrikes echoed through the quiet evening. Besides security forces, the only movement on the site was a few civilians collecting possessions from the wreckage.
“It’s devastating, a lot of our friends were here,” said a man carrying psychedelic canvases from the flapping remains of a purple and orange tent, and stacking them into a truck. “This [group] is like our family.”
Written across the top of one tent was the question: “Who are you? I don’t know?” Below it, a man holds a heart in his hand.
They were the work of Tomer Mabraka, who had had somehow survived the morning of terror; first trying to flee in his car, then on foot and finally hiding for hours with wounded friends, an ordeal he described in a long Facebook post.
They packed up a car after the first alarms and gunshots, but waited inside the festival to avoid crowds at the exit.
After a friend called to say gunmen were targeting cars along the highway, they tried to run – he lost a friend in the chaos – then realised as crowds of terrified festivalgoers surged back towards them, that they were surrounded on all sides.
He took shelter with three other people under the ticket counter at the event, but shots through its thin iron walls left them wounded in the hip, stomach and knees, and they lay there soaked in blood and urine for six hours.
“At some point it was very quiet, I dreamt about my cat, and who is going to feed him when I die,” he said. “Suddenly, out of nowhere we heard one word, that was clearly in an Israeli accent.
“We wanted to scream so much, but we kept quiet and I said don’t do anything, if it is the army they will know to check here, and we waited, and we waited a little more and we waited.”
With the friends of Mabraka was a man in fatigues, wearing a police cap, who said he had been in charge of security for the festival.
He declined to give his name or answer questions about what had happened on the day, but was clear about what he thought should happen next. “Don’t worry, we are going to kill them all and bring Gaza back.”
Their rescue came after midday, and at some kibbutz nearby targeted by Hamas, residents waited even longer for rescue, as families were slaughtered in their homes.
The slow response has left many Israelis questioning what happened to an army and intelligence services considered one of the strongest in the world. Hecht said that was a question for later. “We’ll learn about that after, we are not focusing on that now.”
