Trauma. This word is derived from the ancient Greek verb "titrosko", which is the verb "teiro". And the verb "tiero" means "to tear".

October 7 definitely tore apart the lives of young Israeli kids from the NOVA festival into “before” and “after”.

But can the actions of terrorists tear a whole nation apart?

To answer this question, I met with five heroes from the NOVA festival whose stories just shocked me.

Hila.

On October 7 Hila was at the NOVA Festival as a bartender. When the Hamas terrorists came and started shooting, she didn’t understand what was happening at first. Because explosions in the air sounded like a part of rave music. And many young people continued to dance until the end...

Hila and her friend (who also worked as a bartender at the festival) ran with other guys through the desert for four hours. They saw boys and girls behind them, wounded by bullets and falling to the ground. Hila saw guys calling their families to say goodbye. She saw their friends die right next to her.

2 of Hila's friends were kidnapped that day. 3 are missing. And 5 were killed. One of them was Bar Lior. A couple of weeks ago he would have turned thirty years old.

Naama.

Naama was at the NOVA festival area when the terrorists broke into. She faced with situation when it was already late to run across the desert to save her life. 

Naama and other guys tried to find a place where they could hide from the terrorists. They jumped into a large metal container with garbage bags. They fell silent in this container and lay motionless there. Because at that moment terrorists were running past this container and killing other young guys.

One of the girls from this container moved and the terrorist heard it. He started shooting at the container and Naama jumped out of there. She tried to run away, but the terrorist shot her almost point-blank with a Kalashnikov. She fell to the ground among the guys who had already been killed by the terrorist.

Naama was saved by people, police officers and IDF. They passed the wounded Naama from hand to hand until she woke up in the hospital. 

Yael & Shay. 

Try to remember your youth. You enjoy the party, music, and friends until the morning. But your friend grabs you, drags you to the car and starts driving away in a panic.

Panic. Horror. Disorientation and fear. This is what Yael felt in the first minutes sitting in the car. Only later she will understand that Shay saved her life at that moment...

For some reason, Shay felt trouble much earlier than many others. She was one of the first who guess that the sounds of gunfire were not elements of rave music. And the rockets in the sky are not fireworks from the promoters of the NOVA Festival.

In this tragedy at the NOVA Festival on October 7, 364 people were killed (including 59 police officers). 40 festival participants were kidnapped and taken to Gaza.

Raziel.

Raziel was one of those who ran across the desert with all the other young people (you saw those videos in the media), because he found his car in the parking lot riddled with bomb shrapnel.

He ran across the desert until he found the garden where the farmers were growing fruit. Raziel hid in this garden. But the terrorists were already there...

Terrorists were looking for those who hid from them. Through the foliage, Raziel saw that the terrorists had found other young guys just next to couple metres from him. The terrorists forced these guys to kneel. Boys and girls cried and asked the terrorists not to kill them...Every time Raziel tells this part of his story to journalists, he starts crying...

Raziel was saved by the IDF. They found him using the geotag he sent.