'We were shaking with fear whenever we heard a gunshot somewhere and we could hear gun shots all around us.'
One week had already passed since Maya Parizer experienced the terror of the Hamas attack first-hand.
She was attending the Nova music festival close to the Gaza border along with her boyfriend and friends on the 7th of October when Hamas started firing missiles and then butchering people.
Maya was still shaken when she spoke to Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier from Tel Aviv a week after the attack.
I saw your Instagram post on what you experienced on the day Hamas attacked Israel.
Do you mind telling me about how it was at the music festival before the attack happened?
We were eagerly waiting for the music festival for at least six months. Musicians from all over the world come to Israel to perform at the festival.
There were more than 3,000 people at the venue which included the citizens of Israel and also people from elsewhere.
The party started at 12 at night and was supposed to go till the next day evening. We (my boyfriend, friend and I) reached the place by 2:30 in the morning. We met with a lot of other friends there.
And we had a great time drinking and dancing. Till...
At 6:30 in the morning, we suddenly started noticing missiles and rockets in the sky. Everybody got scared as you don't see missiles on the sky always.
It was not an ordinary sight. The missiles were going to the central part of Israel.
Everything stopped; the music and dancing and drinking. We all lay on the ground.
WATCH: Maya Parizer at the Nova Music Festival with her friends
Was this happening close to the Gaza border?
Yes, we were less than 1 km from the border. The festival was happening in an open space, very close to the kibbutz (Israel's communes).
Then a police officer came and told us to go away from the place. He just said, drive away. So, everyone started running towards their cars.
What happened was, all those people who left then were killed by the terrorists.
Those who were scared took their cars and started driving when they saw the missiles. They are not with us today.
When the missiles were in the sky itself, a lot of terrorists entered the road and started killing all the people who tried to escape in their cars.
We survived just by miracle. Because I was scared to leave at 6:30, we are alive today. For 30 minutes, we just lay flat on the floor.
Then, at 7 we also took our car and left the place. The left turn would take us to the north and the highway, and the right turn would take us to the south but eventually to the north.
We decided to take the left to Road 232, the highway that runs parallel to the Gaza Strip. What we saw on the road was just shocking.
We saw many cars abandoned with the doors open, but with no one inside.
We had no idea that terrorists were moving on the road, and it was their doing. We thought people left the car to escape the missiles.
Soon we started hearing gun shots.
WATCH: From the Reeim shelter where her friend was killed
Were you driving on the highway towards where the terrorists were?
Yes. But we didn't know. We continued to drive for 3-4 minutes.
When we started hearing more and more gun shots, my boyfriend shouted, terrorists... terrorists.
Then, someone told us to stop, and he was an Israeli. He said, 'There are terrorists in Israel, and we don't know how many'.
He asked us to not go further ahead. He said, stop the car and run to the kibbutz.
We stopped our car and rushed out. I saw many cars on the road with gun shots on the windows. We understood what must have happened.
We really got scared and ran into the kibbutz and tried to find a shelter.
WATCH: The horror Maya passed through
Could you find anybody in the kibbutz?
There was nobody outside. Everybody was hiding. This kibbutz was called Kibbutz sa'ad.
Then we saw people who were at the party.
All of us just wanted to drink and party at the festival, and we never thought there would be a war.
It was 7:30 am then. Once inside the kibbutz, I called my parents and said I loved them. I also told them I didn't know how I was going to get out of there.
The shelter we took did not have any doors and that made us all the more scared.
Then we saw the family who lived in the kibbutz, and they asked us to join them inside the house.
They took good care of us by providing us with food and water.
We hid from the terrorists in the kibbutz for 24 hours in one room. There were 7 to 10 people inside the house hiding from the terrorists.
We had no idea whether we were going to come out alive, whether terrorists would enter that kibbutz and kidnap us or kill us.
We were very, very, scared. We were shaking with fear whenever we heard a gunshot somewhere and we could hear gun shots all around us. We thought they would come near us soon.
Moreover, the houses were shaking because of the missiles and rockets. We also heard announcements asking people to go to the shelter.
Did you try to get the help of the police?
When we were on the road and a person asked us to run, I called the police. I must have called at least eight times, but no one answered.
I came to know later that the terrorists killed the police and took the police cars.
They also took over police stations and army base after shooting everyone and beheading them.
They were very brutal, the entire Hamas organisation.
What was going through your mind when you were hiding in the kibbutz for 24 hours?
I thought, where are the police? Why are we not fighting back? Where is the army?
I thought I would never see my family again. I would not see my dog.
I thought I would not get married like I was supposed to.
There were so many such thoughts in my mind.
I then started checking on my friends at the party one by one. I wanted to find out whether everybody is safe.
But not everyone was safe. One was missing and another dead.
I went to her funeral...
- Part 2 of the Interview: 'How come the world is angry with Israel?'
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
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