The first male survivor of the October 7 Nova festival rape attack to speak out about the ordeal has described the horrors he endured.
The man, whose name is given only by its Hebrew initial Dalet, told Israel’s Channel 12 news: “[They were] pin yourself to the ground.
‘You try to resist, but they take off your clothes, laugh at you, humiliate you, spit on you, touch you [private] parts, and rape you.’
He said he tried to flee the Hamas attack on the festival, but was captured by fighters from the terror group’s elite Nukhba unit.
“There’s a circle, they’re laughing, and you don’t know what to do at that moment, whether to resist or let it pass, how to deal with the situation. It was a very brutal rape,” Dalet said in the interview about the shocking ordeal.
File footage of festival-goers fleeing as Hamas gunmen storm the Nova music festival on October 7 last year
Charred and damaged cars line a desert road after an attack by Hamas militants on the Tribe of Nova Trance music festival near Kibbutz Re’im in southern Israel on Saturday, October 7
Footage showed revellers at the Nova festival dancing to music as Hamas fighters used paragliders to launch their attack
Destroyed cars and personal belongings are still strewn across the festival grounds, pictured on October 13
He said his attackers only stopped when more Hamas fighters arrived and called them out.
Dalet described his attackers as “very drunk” as they celebrated and laughed and brandished their weapons and knives.
He said that while he tried to distance himself from the rape, he also experienced it as “very intense” and found it “very difficult.”
Dalet miraculously escaped when Israeli troops arrived, forcing Hamas terrorists to retreat back to Gaza. Other victims of sexual attacks on October 7 were killed before they could speak of the horrors they endured.
“In the beginning I shut down completely; I was a lot less active,” Dalet told Channel 12, adding that he had developed obsessive tendencies, such as showering over and over again “to wash away what had happened.”
He also said that the horrible memories of the rape surfaced during conversations with other people.
Dalet’s report on the rape has been handed over to an Israeli police unit investigating sexual abuse by Hamas fighters on October 7.
He was also one of dozens of survivors who filed a lawsuit against the state of Israel earlier this year, in which the plaintiffs are seeking more than £100 million from their government.
Lawyers representing the group of survivors said they feel abandoned by the state and that many visitors to the Nova festival can no longer work because of what they experienced on October 7.