What would you want in that moment?

Partial re-print from Table Magazine

At first, partygoers heard a loud explosion, which they took to be another sporadic rocket attack on southern Israel. But then the explosions grew louder and constant, and kept going for about five minutes. The music stopped, and the police protecting the 4,000 or 5,000 ravers began pushing everyone to leave. By then, the terrorists were approaching in pickup trucks bearing Hamas military markings. Shooting began. Many were executed on the spot. 260 bodies have been found, so far, on the site of the rave. Many of the young men and women started running in the flat expanse of the western Negev desert. Faced with the spectacle of kids fleeing for their lives on a largely flat surface, the terrorists began rounding up the rest of their victims. Others were captured and bound and kidnapped. " Women have been raped at the area of the rave next to their friends bodies, dead bodies.” Several of these rape victims appear to have been later executed. Others were taken to Gaza. One survivor who’d returned to the scene later in the day to look for his friends spoke, in a breaking voice, of what he’d seen. Of the bodies, mainly of young women, lying cold and mutilated. Of scantily clad corpses, many of whom appeared to have been shot at point-blank. Of cars, perforated by bullets or blown up by grenades. Some of the lucky ones ran to a nearby wadi, seeking shelter amid the shrubbery. “I felt like they were shooting right above our heads,” one survivor recalled. “I dove into a bush … It felt like the shooting was coming from 180 degrees, all around us. I understood we’re going to be there for at least a couple of hours. And I had nothing on me. And I was like, the only thing I want is a weapon. I want something to protect us.” Eventually, he and his friends, some of them barefoot, decided to risk it and try to reach safety, walking close enough to the road to see it but not so close so that they might be seen. “I said, if we see like army or police cars, we’re going to go to the road. Otherwise, we’re going to stay away. When we saw police and army cars, we knew that it’s a safe place.”