Music Festival Massacre Site Becoming Tree-Lined Park, an Israeli Memorial Place of Peace

RE'IM PARK, southern Israel – On most any day, dozens, if not hundreds, of people visit the Nova Music Festival Memorial site.

Given its status as one of the hardest-hit areas on October 7th and the wide-open space, the memorial is now considered a destination for what's been called "grief tourism.

The location sits in a beautiful park about three miles from Gaza. Placards remembering those killed and kidnapped, completed with small gardens and memorials, now fill the place.

New Yorker Natalie Sanandaji attended the Nova Festival as part of her vacation in Israel. 

She told CBN News, "I just want you to imagine over 3,000 people here dancing, trying to get away from all the horrors of life, and then suddenly being reminded of how horrible things can be. They came here to enjoy. They – we – never could have imagined what was going to happen to us."

Sanandaji added, "I danced amongst all these people. I was here. I was with them. I was dancing right next to them. Unfortunately for them, a lot of them weren't as lucky as me and they didn't make it out."

She's returned to Israel twice since then and recently shared her story with former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his wife.

Asleep when the rockets started early that morning, a friend urged Natalie to stay calm.

"And try to imagine a festival happening anywhere else in the world where suddenly rockets were intercepted over people's heads, and they react in such a calm manner that simply would not happen," she suggested. "But unfortunately for Israelis, this is their reality."

Although they escaped, terrorists murdered more than 360 people there, taking about another 40 hostages.

***Please sign up for CBN Newsletters and download the CBN News app to ensure you keep receiving the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.***

Stacy Sokol from Beth Jacob of Beverly Hills Synagogue in California came to the site as part of a three-day mission to Israel.

"I came to offer strength to the soldiers, to offer condolences to the people who lost their loved ones, and to give hope to those who hope their family will return," he explained tearfully.

"It's nothing like what was reported," he said. "You don't get a sense of what's going on, of the devastation, of how bad it was. They gloss over the Hamas killings." 

Police Spokesman Dean Elsdunne said it took weeks to identify all the bodies.

"‘Monster’ is a compliment for the terrorists. Before my job, I worked in counterterrorism. I met Hamas face-to-face plenty of times. But this, to see what they would do if we didn't stop them from the drop in the bucket of operations that we do day to day right here, this is it," he insisted.

As a sign of moving forward, an Israeli company, KKL-JNF recently sponsored tree-planting on the site in memory of those killed.

Noah Tal, head of the planning division for KKL-JNF, noted, "By the trees, we symbolize that the state of Israel is here to stay, and that's how we see it. And that's why we decided to celebrate life due to those horrific action(s) that were done here by Hamas, and to tell them, you can never break our spirit. We will keep on planting. We will keep on the life here in Israel."