I spent 4 hours operating for my life on the Nova pageant. A person in a white pickup truck rescued me, however I by no means discovered what occurred to him after he returned for extra folks.

• Natalie Sanandaji is an American who attended the Tribe of Nova music pageant on October 7.

• She and her buddies spent 4 hours operating by means of the desert earlier than they had been rescued.

• The 28-year-old mentioned she discovered later that she almost missed being shot at.

This as-told-to essay relies on a dialog with Natalie Sanandaji, a 28-year-old New York resident and “American Jew born to Israeli and Iranian dad and mom.” It has been edited for size and readability.

Sanandaji initially went to Israel for a good friend’s marriage ceremony however was on the Tribe of Nova musical festival on October 7 when a Hamas terror attack resulted within the deaths of not less than 260 concertgoers and staff.

From the start of my journey, I knew I used to be going to be on the rave. I arrived with three different buddies round 1 a.m. We had been there dancing for about two hours and round 3 a.m., we determined to take a break and sit on the campsite on the pageant grounds, take a nap, and get up for the dawn set.

We had been woken up by one of many women in our camp, who knowledgeable us that there had been some rockets that had been despatched our method and intercepted overhead. She simply needed us to be alert.

No different folks would react the way in which that the pageant attendees reacted. They had been pretty calm. She reassured me that it might simply most likely be a couple of rockets and that this was a traditional scenario for the realm.

After a couple of minutes, the rockets stored coming. We began to understand that this wasn’t simply one other regular scenario. The pageant safety, at this level, had turned off the music and requested everyone to go straight to their automobiles. We picked up our issues and went to our automotive. At this level, we thought that it was solely rockets and that the worst hazard that we might be in was that our automotive would get hit by some scraps from the rockets that had been being intercepted by the Iron Dome.

Everybody was making an attempt to depart on the similar time, so we thought it might most likely take a couple of additional hours to get dwelling. So I requested my buddies in the event that they thought it was okay if I went again to the campgrounds to make use of the toilet. I went again to make use of the toilet, and a few days in the past I noticed a video that surfaced of the terrorists coming to these actual bogs and simply capturing on the rest room stalls making an attempt to kill anyone who may need been inside. If I had been there moments later, that would have been me.

After attending to our automotive, the pageant safety requested everyone to drive down in a single course on the dust street. You could not drive on a lot of the open subject and everyone was making an attempt to get out on the similar time on the identical street. We began driving and the pageant safety began asking everybody to show round and go in one other course. This was the second time the place we began to actually notice that one thing else was taking place that we did not absolutely know of but. I would additionally prefer to level out the truth that the safety did their finest to get everybody out safely and lots of of them died within the course of.

We began going within the different course. Immediately safety was asking everybody to please pull over on the aspect of the street, get out of their vehicles, and start running. And for a second, we sat there and we did not perceive why they might say one thing like that. To us, the quickest approach to get out of right here was by automotive.

After we heard the primary gunshots, that is once we realized that it wasn’t simply rockets and that the terrorists had come on foot, they usually had weapons, they usually had been coming after us. As quickly as we heard the gunshots we simply opened our doorways and began operating for our lives. No person knew what course to run in. We began to understand after some time that they had been coming at us from each course.

One of many scariest issues at that second was operating in a sure course and considering that you simply had been operating to security after which seeing dozens of youngsters run in your course and realizing that they had been being shot at. Each determination you made both saved your life or acquired you killed, and also you had no concept of understanding which selection was the suitable selection.

At a sure level, once we had been operating, we handed by a ditch. There have been plenty of children hiding in the ditch they usually advised us to come back down and conceal with them. We had been about to do this till certainly one of my buddies mentioned, “If we disguise on this ditch they usually discover us, we will get shot.” We determined to maintain operating. We later came upon that the individuals who stayed within the ditch had been killed.

Ultimately, we ran right into a police officer. He did not have a lot to guard us with, however he walked by our aspect making an attempt to information us to security. He could not even name for backup as a result of the native police station had been taken over.

We ran for about 4 hours. Ultimately, we determined to cease, sit below a tree, and get some shade as we had been operating within the solar. We had no water. We did not hear any gunshots for a minute or two. I made a decision it was an excellent second to only sit down and catch our breath. At this level, a big white pickup truck was coming in our course. And our first thought was that this might be a terrorist coming to kill us. We thought to stand up and operating, however we realized we had nowhere to run.

It turned out to be a person from the close by city that we had been operating in the direction of — the city of Patish. He had risked his personal life to select up folks and convey them to security in his city. I do not even know his title. We simply hopped at the back of his truck and he drove us to Patish, and as quickly as he dropped us off, he rotated and went again to go save extra children.

I hadn’t advised my mother that I used to be on the pageant till I had gotten again safely dwelling to a good friend’s home. Everybody’s response to me being protected was simply that God was watching over me and I simply acquired very fortunate.

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