2023-12-08 02:06:00
“Sometimes I feel guilty that I survived and that others didn’t”Vlada Patapov, 25, told the British media Daily Mail. The young woman is one of the survivors of the Supernova music festival, where Hamas carried out the attack on him on October 7. Patapov was nicknamed “the woman in red” since a video in which she was seen fleeing from the terrorist group’s fighters went viral on social networks.
Patapov, of Ukrainian origin, said that she did not want to go to the festival, but that it was “a last minute thing.” “They kill [su pareja] He bought some tickets and we went with a friend, butor I had a feeling something wasn’t right when we left on Friday afternoon“, she explained. In that sense, she expressed that Romi, her one-year-old daughter, “was very quiet, she is usually noisy running around with her toys, but that day she was quiet, and I am sure now that She knew something terrible was going to happen.“.
“I saw how Hamas fighters beat her and raped her”: the story of a survivor of the music festival in Israel
After they arrived at the place, the three of them camped and spent the night talking. “I remember that the atmosphere was very strange, people were having fun and dancing, but for me there was no energy and I didn’t dance as much as I usually do when I go to these festivals. It was around 3 in the morning and I lay down on the mat to sleep,” she explained.
However, his dream was interrupted three hours later, when at 6:30 in the morning She was woken up by an air raid alarm app on her phone.. “At the time I thought it was strange to have a festival so close to the Gaza border and have rockets fall from time to time, but I thought the organizers must think it was safe or they wouldn’t hold it,” he explained.
After the notification from her cell phone, the woman looked for her partner and her friend, but immediately heard gunshots. “It was loud and very close to us. For a few seconds I didn’t know what was happening and then Matan just yelled that we had to run to the car,” she said. “The missiles started coming and the place went crazy, The announcer said that everyone had to evacuate and people started running to their cars,” he added.
“I think at first people thought it was just one of those routine rocket attacks from Gaza and it wasn’t until later when we looked at our phones that we realized it was an invasion and these terrorists wanted to kill us. But I don’t understand why, even now, it was just a music festival, it was peaceful, people were dancing and they came and murdered people, some of my friends, and for what?” he said.
Vlada Patapov, 25, became one of the visible faces of the attack on the Supernova music festival.
When the three reached the vehicle, they sped toward the exit, but their path was blocked by other cars. “Everyone was honking, I was in the passenger seat and Matan was driving with Mai behind,” she explained. Immediately afterwards, they saw a man in front of them “dressed in a military uniform.” “We thought he was an Israeli soldier and that we would be fine, then a guy a few cars ahead got out and the soldier, who I now know was a terrorist, shot him“, he said.
Following that, the three crouched down and “the bullets began to hit the cars around us”, although they did not reach them. “Matan managed to push us back to try to get out the other side. It was just chaos, there were abandoned cars everywhere and we managed to get to a shelter next to the road, where a police officer yelled at us to keep driving east if we wanted to continue with life,” he said.
And he added: “Matan kept driving, but we didn’t get very far and then We saw terrorists on cars, bikes and trucks heading towards us shootingso we tried to cross the field but we got stuck, so we all got out and started running for our lives.”
More than a thousand people were killed during the attack on the Supernova music festival.
At that moment, the woman separated from her partner, and for almost 24 hours she did not see him again and did not know his whereabouts. However, she stayed with her friend, with whom they began to run until they reached some trees, while both cried. “We didn’t know what to do or where to go. and the only thing I could think about was Romi. I kept seeing her face and said someone has to survive for her,” she stated.
“So Mai and I started running again, and that’s when you see me in the video get into the car of my angel, a man named Yosef Ben Avu, he stopped and told us to get in and we did, all the while We were filming what was happening,” he continued. In the vehicle, a Kia Picanto, there were eight passengers, “all on top of each other”. “I called Matan and told him I was fine and he said that they had also picked him up and that he was safe,” the young woman added.
In this way, both managed to reach a military base in Tze’elim safely, while Matan went to one 20 minutes away in Orim. “The whole thing had lasted three hours but it happened so fast. The longest part was waiting at the base before they could pick me up and go home to see Romi, and I gave him the biggest hug I’ve ever had,” she said. “What happened to me only lasted maybe 18 hours, but for many the pain still continues and I think of the hostages who are still in Gaza. We must not forget them“concluded the woman.
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