The festival was one of the first targets of Hamas's surprise attack against Israel in the early morning hours of 7 October 2023. The attack opened with a rocket barrage starting at about 6:30 a.m. that provided cover for infiltration. A
rocket siren sounded in the area. At 6:35 a.m., the senior police commander on duty at the festival, Deputy Superintendent Nivi Ohana of the
Ofakim police station, taking note of the unusually heavy rocket fire, decided to shut down the event and evacuate the partygoers. This decision is credited with saving hundreds of lives. Ohana also requested additional security and backup subsequently arrived, including a team from the
Yasam riot control unit. Ohana and members of the production team called on the partygoers to disperse through loudspeakers. By 7:00 a.m., Ohana had left to defend his city, which was
also under attack. Partygoers began fleeing as the police directed them to evacuate along
Route 232. At 7:13 a.m., the
Home Front Command officer at the Northern Brigade of the
Gaza Division received an inaccurate update that some 90% of the partygoers had evacuated as well as that there were reports of gunfire, and passed it on. At this stage, the division wrongly understood that the party had largely dispersed. Police directing traffic out of the area noticed that many partygoers were returning after coming under fire. Those who fled north were fired at near
Alumim,
Be'eri, and
Sa'ad, and those who then tried to flee south came under fire from militants who had captured junctions along the highway. After realizing what was happening along the evacuation routes, police opened a dirt path leading east, enabling thousands of people to escape through agricultural fields toward
Patish, with people fleeing both by car and foot. Dozens of vehicles were abandoned by fleeing partygoers along Route 232 and on the festival grounds. Meanwhile, Hamas fighters murdered partygoers along the highway and at several roadside bomb shelters. By 8:00 a.m., about 90% of the partygoers had evacuated the festival grounds. The only people remaining behind were police officers, event staff, and some partygoers who thought the grounds were safer than the roads. At the same time, a force of 110 Hamas fighters on 14 pickup trucks and two motorcycles entered Israel from
Nuseirat, heading for
Netivot. The force passed Be'eri, where a militant outside the kibbutz signaled to the force to continue along Route 232. However, the force got lost near
Shokeda and instead of heading north and then east to Netivot, the militants headed south toward the Nova festival grounds. On the way, they stopped at a bomb shelter near Be'eri and murdered several people sheltering there, including partygoers who fled the festival. At 8:12 a.m., the militants spotted a police roadblock near the festival and an exchange of fire began as the police officers, armed only with pistols, engaged. At 8:14 a.m., a
RPG was fired at the roadblock, striking an abandoned vehicle and wounding several police officers and partygoers in the vicinity. Dozens of partygoers who had assembled near the police officers along the highway began to flee either back into the festival grounds or east through the fields. Those who fled into the festival grounds began looking for places to hide, taking cover in bushes, portable toilets, and dumpsters. Members of the staff also hid underneath the drink bars. An ambulance that had been in the area for the event also drove from its position at the entrance into the festival grounds and 20 people took cover in and around it. The militants continued to advance along the highway, setting fire to abandoned cars. The tank and those using it as cover continued to withdraw south from the festival area. Surviving police and festival security guards kept fighting around the tank but could no longer defend the way to the festival grounds. The retreat of the tank, police, and security guards opened the way for the militants to reach the grounds. At 8:50 a.m., the militants spotted partygoers fleeing east along the dirt path and opened fire. From 9:00 a.m. to 9:10 a.m., they abducted seven hostages who had been hiding along the sides of the highway. At 9:15 a.m., Major Avraham Hovelashvili, deputy commander of the IDF's
Caracal Battalion, was killed near the festival grounds after encountering a group of militants while en route to the
Sufa area to join his unit. Shortly afterwards, the commander of the militants instructed his forces to enter the festival grounds. Dozens of Hamas fighters subsequently raided the festival grounds and established a command post. The militants killed most of the civilians they encountered and took others hostage. Independently verified drone footage from the site showed dozens of scorched, burnt cars and
skid marks. Footage of the attack, posted on a
Telegram channel, included graphic depictions of killing and hostage-taking. The Hamas militants
kidnapped festival participants; videos on social media showed them being seized. It was later determined that 44 people were abducted. The abducted partygoers were taken to the Gaza Strip, Relatives and friends of the missing searched for information about the missing. Those abducted included 21-year-old French-Israeli woman
Mia Schem and 25-year-old Israeli woman
Noa Argamani. Three dual Brazilian-Israeli nationals who had attended the festival were also missing. During the massacre, according to survivor and emergency responder testimony,
Hamas militants raped women and men. According to survivor testimony released by
Lahav 433, a young woman was gang raped before being killed. The testimony was published in Hebrew- and English-language Israeli news outlets. According to
Haaretz police reporter
Josh Breiner,
ZAKA emergency response personnel found naked women with injuries and their genitals mutilated, with others found bound and naked below their waists. By 9:50 a.m., the Hamas force had left the festival grounds and returned to the highway. They proceeded to Be'eri on orders of their commanders in Gaza and joined other militants carrying out the
Be'eri massacre. At 10:20 a.m., dozens of Gazans unaffiliated with Hamas, some of them armed, reached the festival grounds and began to loot the bodies of the dead. At the same time, fighting continued around the tank further south along Route 232. A senior reservist officer, Brigadier General
Oren Solomon, who was fighting in the area, reported the presence of numerous militants, although he was unaware of the massacre at the festival. Soldiers from the
Multidimensional Unit were sent to the area but never reached the festival grounds, as they became caught up in fighting at Re'im. At 10:25 a.m., the Hamas force that had carried out the massacre was spotted by an
Israeli Air Force attack helicopter en route to
Re'im as it withdrew in a convoy along Route 232. The helicopter crew, which was unaware of the festival's existence and had no contact with ground troops, decided not to open fire on the Hamas convoy, fearing potential
friendly fire. The first IDF reinforcements to arrive in the area, troops from the
Givati Brigade's Shaked Battalion, arrived at 11:35 a.m. after being sent there from the
West Bank by the commander of the Ephraim Regional Brigade. One of the partygoers was an off-duty soldier with the Ephraim Brigade and had called in for help. The soldiers advanced into the festival grounds at 11:50 a.m. and killed two attackers. Over the following hour, the soldiers, joined by operators of the
Israel Prison Service's
Metzada Unit, killed some 15 attackers in the Nova festival area. Some were from the original wave of militants who had perpetrated the massacre and had stayed behind while others were from the second wave of infiltrators. Several of the attackers were also taken alive. Additional forces reached the area at 1:00 p.m., though by this time fighting had ceased. They rescued the survivors and treated the wounded. At 3:00 p.m., the site was declared cleared of militants. ==Casualties==