Artist manager describes “nightmare” of Israeli festival rave attack

Rax Gaster – an artist manager who had multiple acts scheduled to play at the Paralello Universo festival in Re’im, Israel – has described the scenes of chaos and terror as an attack took place.

The electronic music festival, which was located near the Gaza Strip, saw at least 260 people killed and others abducted as an attack was launched by Hamas operatives over the weekend (Saturday, October 7). In a recollection of the night, he described the incident as like a “nightmare”.

According to a report shared by Billboard, Gaster showed up at the festival site around 5:30am, and the party was set to run until 5pm that evening. It was around an hour after he arrived that the night took a turn, however, when rockets and missiles launched by Hamas from the Gaza Strip landed on the site.

“Around 6:30 in the morning we started hearing explosions,” he said. “We went out of the backstage and we saw a full bombardment everywhere. It was hundreds of rockets and mortars flying from everywhere and explosions all around us.”

He also stated that security advised all attendees to get down to the floor and put their hands above their heads for protection, but after five or 10 minutes informed everyone to “get in your cars and go”.

“The moment the policemen said ‘go now,’ I ran,” he added. “I didn’t wait, because we know it’s a rocket attack. You need to act quick.”

The Paralello Universo festival was first started nearly 20 years ago, and the Israel event was called Supernova Sukkot Gathering – named after the Jewish holiday and hosting a line-up of electronic artists.

Fleeing the event, Gaster told the outlet that he and three others were able to make it to the car quickly because they were parked closeby, and began “driving super fast, not stopping for anything, even when missiles [were] coming down”. “

“My instinct told me don’t stop for shelter, just drive… We drove so fast we didn’t even know what was happening,” he continued, adding that he tried to ensure artists he works with were also in vehicles to flee the site.

When he and the others made it to a villa rented by the production team around 30 kilometres away, he added they had begun getting texts and phone calls informing them that, minutes after they drove away from the site, Hamas fighters had arrived “with machine guns, with RPGs, with grenades, and just slaughtered whoever they could.”

Gaster and those that he was with then turned the villa into a command centre, according to Billboard, and began contacting IDF, other Israeli security services and “all of our friends that we know personally that have firearms that have connections that can go there.”

During this time, he continued, they were receiving messages from friends and colleagues still on site, who reported that the attackers were shooting attendees in their cars as they attempted to drive away.

As of Sunday (Oct. 8), Israeli rescue service Zaka has reported at least 260 bodies at the site.

“People were hiding in ditches, hiding in bushes, hiding in the woods, hiding wherever you can think of,” said Gaster. “We were getting horrible messages from friends saying, ‘Please help us, they are shooting people next to us.’”

He added that it took IDF and special forces a few hours to arrive at the site, although the security at the event tried to help attendees in the meantime. He also said that he and the team at the villa were being sent on-site locations from various attendees and they sent these locations to the owner, who then went to help those stranded.

Universo Paralello was not originally intended to take place at the Re’im site, and the organisers moved it to this location only two days before it started after the original site in southern Israel fell through.

“Many friends are still missing, and we still don’t know where they are,” concluded Gaster, also stating that he estimates around 600-700 people are still missing from the party.

“We are a peaceful community, we are a musical community, we do it for the creation of fun. We only wanted to dance and have a good time and enjoy music together, and it turned into a nightmare.”

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