Nova Music Festival Survivor Recalls Oct. 7 Attack: ‘We Thought, We’re Gonna Be Next.’

On the first anniversary of Hamas’ October 7 terror attack on Israel, one survivor is recalling his harrowing experience.

Daniel Vaknine, 30, was at the Nova Music Festival with his girlfriend and friends when terrorists began firing missiles from Gaza. He recalls a tense moment after the first missile made landfall. 

“After a few seconds it was just a barrage that didn’t stop for 15 minutes,” Vaknine told The Daily Wire.

On the first anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, one survivor is recalling his harrowing experience.

Meet Daniel Vaknine who fled the Nova festival and was protected by a Holocaust survivor.

My latest: pic.twitter.com/YfVcY4y5Nn

— Kassy Akiva (@KassyAkiva) October 7, 2024

He and his friends took cover and eventually made it back to their car. But when they drove away from the festival grounds, they began to realize the extent of Hamas’ attack.

“After 10 or 15 minutes of driving we headed to one of the routes that leads to Kfar Aza,” where two people “Stopped us, waving their hands, like, you cannot go further, there’s a terror attack in front of us.”

“That’s the moment that we started to realize that something’s going on. We were just getting shot at, we just came from the same situation.”

“We cannot go anywhere, because both sides are getting shot at.”

Eventually, a stranger led Vaknine and others fleeing the attacks to a religious Kibbutz nearby. About 60 people took shelter at the compound for hours, where Vaknine met an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor named Sarah Jackson, who took them into her home and provided them protection in her bomb shelter for over 10 hours.

Vaknine recalls a friend sheltering further back in the Kibbutz calling him to say she had heard that terrorists breached the gate and were entering the compound.

“I think all of us kind of had a complete feeling that maybe we’re done,” Vaknine said. “For almost half an hour, but for us it was eternity, we thought, we’re gonna be next, we’re done.”

Fortunately, Vaknine and his friends survived the attack. At first, he said he found it hard to listen to trance music, the style featured at the Nova Music Festival, because it reminded him of October 7.

“I can’t believe this music that was my home, that was my safe house, became something so hurtful,” he said. “And I was so afraid that I would never be able to listen to this music again” because “it would symbolize a terror attack, it would symbolize death.”

But, after a year of reflection and conversations with friends, Vaknine is optimistic.

“We will sing again, we will dance again, we will laugh again, we will love again, we will live again. We will do exactly what we did before, but even stronger now.”