‘The music stopped and the nightmare began’: Israeli reveller reveals how she smeared herself in blood and pretended to lie dead for three hours as Hamas festival massacre unfolded

A survivor of the Israeli festival massacre has told of her terrifying experience, after being covered in blood and pretending to be dead for three hours to survive.

May Hayat, 30, was among the crowd at the Tribe of Nova festival in Re’im when Hamas gunmen stormed the venue and opened fire, killing at least 260 people.

She had been working at the festival, three miles from the Gaza border, with her girlfriend Liron – and the pair had ‘so much fun’ together.

But she recalled the moment when the music stopped and the ‘nightmare’ began, when terrorists stormed the festival and started shooting innocent people.

Ms Hayat said on Instagram that as she was walking towards their trailer to watch the ‘beautiful sunrise’ on Saturday morning, she noticed rockets started flying overhead.

She said: ‘Tthe music stopped and we waited for the situation to calm down so we could go home.

“Suddenly I get a call from a friend who says that she and everyone who has started driving home from the party are being shot at,” she said.

Ms Hayat then explained how she ran to the police officers closest to her, asking them to go and reinforce those being attacked.

But once they realized that there were more terrorists coming in, they were helpless. “There was a lot of chaos,” she said.

She continued: “We went to hide in the police command room and we all sat on the floor. Some people cried, some screamed, some had anxiety attacks and some were completely silent.

“I hugged everyone who was crying and not breathing, and Liron helped the wounded while we were under attack.

The sound of shooting began to approach, the policemen stood at the door with their weapons ready and looked at each other with a frightened look and shouted “storm!”

“They turned to us just before they left the room and told us to ‘run and pray.’

Ms Hayat then explained how each officer was shot one after the other, with volleys of gunfire entering the room.

“For a moment there was a shocked silence,” she said, before leaving the danger zone.

“We left the room running to the battlefield and as I’m running I turned and saw Liro. She stayed there and did not come with us. We tried and ran as fast as we could until we reached an ambulance and hid behind it. Shots were coming from all sides.

“I saw someone in the distance shouting ‘come here, it’s safer’. I ran towards him, but no one came with me,” she recalled.

Ms Hayat explained how she and another festival goer started running together until they saw a vehicle approaching. It was one of the party members who offered to try to help them escape.

In a frenzy, the car’s wheels stuck in the sand, with gunfire coming from all directions, she said.

“We ran out of the car until we noticed a hole in the ground. We went inside, held hands and prayed. It was just the two of us.

“I said to him, ‘You know the Holocaust stories where people pretended to be dead so they wouldn’t be noticed?’ That’s what’s going to happen to us.”

The other party-goer then helped cover them in the sand, with the pair remaining silent for about an hour, she said.

But “they found us,” Ms. Hayat said, as eight terrorists gathered around two civilians.

“I closed my eyes tightly because I was sure they were going to shoot us. But then they grabbed us and lifted us off the ground. They took our phones and everything we had in our pockets. They announced on their walkie-talkies “We have two more abductees.”

One of the terrorists then began speaking to Ms Hayat in Arabic, to which she replied that she ‘didn’t understand’.

“I didn’t scream, I didn’t go crazy, I became apathetic,” she said.

She continued: “He put his jacket on me while the rest of them looked at me like I was a piece of meat because I was wearing a T-shirt.

“In one hand, he holds my hand, and in the other, he holds a racket.”

The group started walking, with Mrs Hayat noting that they were searching the ground for things like ‘cigarettes and drinks’.

“So I helped them,” she said. ‘I didn’t want to resist. Those who were with me did not stop crying and asking for his life”, she added.

“I tried to explain to him that he should stop crying, ‘It upsets them, stop crying and everything will be fine,’ I said.

“They had knives and hammers. At first he listened to me, but very soon he returned to his original reaction and fell to his knees begging for his life.

And then – he didn’t scream anymore. They killed him before my eyes,” she added.

Ms Hayat was then left alone with the Hamas terrorists as they tried to taunt her, hitting her on the head and coming at her with knives.

She explained: “The terrorist who held my hand shouted at them and ‘took me under his arms.’

As they reached the cars, Mrs. Hayat realized that they were not going to leave. “The knife-wielding terrorist, the one who killed the boy who was with me a little while ago, said, ‘If you try to run away, I’ll kill you like I killed your friend,'” she said.

“I remained standing and the terrorist who “took me under his wing” told me that I could go. I didn’t know what to do and just started running. I ran like crazy’.

Mrs. Hayat recalled bitterly: “I hid under the party stage and lay down next to the three dead. I smeared myself with blood dripping from one of the bodies next to me and pretended to be dead for three hours.

“Three hours that felt like an eternity. Three hours where the terrorists passed me, shooting everywhere and burning every possible piece of land as rockets whizzed over my head. For three hours I lay among the corpses, wondering what would happen to me.’

Ms. Hayat then heard people in the distance speaking Hebrew. She recalled screaming for help as Army soldiers arrived to take her to a trailer with paramedics, along with other survivors.

She said: ‘So it’s true. They killed my soul and I hope one day I can heal it. But Liron, remember Liron from the beginning of the story? My girlfriend. They killed him. They killed my hero and unfortunately no one will be able to bring him back to me in my lifetime.’

At least 260 people were killed at the festival in southern Israel on Saturday.

Many others were wounded in the attacks as armed Hamas militants broke through.

About 3,500 people are said to have been at the festival, although reports vary.

Gunmen broke into the festival in vans, while others arrived in motorized paragliders.

Hamas took an unknown number of hostages from the festival.

Fears have been raised for the safety of British national Jake Marlowe, 26, who has been missing since Saturday.

He was working at the Supernova Festival, near the Gaza Strip, when Palestinian militants stormed the site at dawn, firing rockets and sending gun-toting terrorists to attack.

More than 100 people have been taken hostage since the incursion began on Saturday.

Thomas Helm, Jerusalem correspondent for The National, told MailOnline on Saturday locals had expected a rocket attack but were surprised by the nature of the full-scale attack.

“What’s so shocking about it is the creativity. People were planning a huge rocket barrage. This is what we have been worried about for a long time. But for people to fly in airplanes, it is unreal,” he said.

“What it does more than anything else is it breaks the sense that Israel … every time you talk to an Israeli general, they’re obsessed with prevention. And they worry that their deterrence has waned in recent months. But it breaks him.

Israel has responded with devastating airstrikes in the past two days and today announced it will push for a ‘full encirclement’ of Gaza, affecting 2.3 million people living in the Strip.

Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, said today: “There will be no electricity, food or fuel (delivered to Gaza).

“We are fighting barbarians (terrorists) and will respond accordingly.”

Some 300,000 reservists have been called up as Israel gains momentum.

With the siege, the country is now “trying to prepare their supporters” for the possibility that “this is going to be a long war”, Helm told MailOnline this evening.

At the same time, the continued attacks in Jerusalem today show that Hamas still has large reserves of premium weapons, he said.

“The thinking has been that (Hamas) fired (the most powerful rockets) in the first volley. But if they are still hitting Jerusalem now, it shows that they still have a desire to escalate.’

Hamas has responded to the increased airstrikes by threatening to execute its hostages and sharing evidence online.

Qatar has since sought to broker de-escalation talks with Israel and Hamas, aiming to secure a deal where both sides release prisoners.

Ongoing negotiations, which Qatar has been conducting in coordination with the United States since late Saturday, are “moving positively,” a source told Reuters earlier today.

“We are in constant contact with all parties at the moment. Our priorities are to end the bloodshed, release the prisoners and ensure that the conflict is contained without regional spillover,” foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said.