The Israeli dad of a 20-year-old woman who had been attending a music festival that came under attack from Hamas terrorists early on Saturday morning, has now gone missing.
Mark Peretz, 51, raced to the area where the trance music festival was taking place, just three miles from the Gaza Strip in the hope of rescuing his daughter, Maya, from the unfolding terror.
Mark knew he was heading into danger as he left his home in Rishon LeZion and began the journey south.
During the car ride he was in contact by phone with his family but gunshots sounded when suddenly the call was cut off.
Maya, meanwhile, was with a group of about 12 people who initially managed to escape in a car as they sped away from the Tribe of Nova music festival – but were later forced to abandon the vehicle altogether as terrorists continued to pursue them.
As of Sunday night, Hamas was believed to be holding more than 100 hostages while the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are reporting more than 700 Israeli’s dead with 2,150 injured. Four Americans are confirmed to be among the dead.
At least 260 people have been confirmed dead at the music festival. Bloodied bodies were stacked in tents while they await identification
The father 20-year-old Maya Peretiz, attending a music festival that came under attack from Hamas terrorists has gone missing. She is pictured along side dad, Mark, 51
Footage of the festival before the attack was posted on social media
The terrorists gunned down as many revelers as possible and on Sunday night horrifying photos emerged of bodies piled up in a tent at the festival.
Authorities believe 260 people were massacred at the event at which between 3-4,000 people have been in attendance.
Many of those kidnapped by Hamas terrorists include women both young and old. The terrorists even shot the legs off hostages to prevent them from escaping.
While Maya managed to successfully get away, her group eventually managed to find safety in a police station for three hours.
Following Mark’s disappearance, his son’s friends, all of whom are ex-military set about searching for him. They quickly located his car but found no trace of him.
His phone still appeared to be sending erratic pings indicating his location but Israeli authorities don’t have the manpower to deal with the search for one individual given the current crisis.
The full horror of what unfolded at the dance festival became clear as drone footage from above allowed for a birds eye view of the site
‘[He] dropped everything and drove there. Even given the situation, given the fact that there were rockets being thrown over our heads. Given the fact that he saw Hamas terrorists riding into Israel, taking parachutes into Israel… he went to go rescue Maya,’ Mark’s daughter-in-law, Jessica Cohen, 24, told The New York Post.
He was about 20 minutes away from reaching his daughter when his phone suddenly cut off.
‘We were on the phone with him and we heard gunshots, and don’t know exactly sure what happened,’ Jessica explained. ‘Everyone in Israel is hugging one another, but we’re living in a nightmare. We’re all living in this crazy terror attack, and it’s insane. It’s really just unfathomable.
‘The police are dealing with so much other stuff right now. There are so many terrorists still out there, and the streets are really blocked off everywhere we go,’ Cohen explained.
‘There are thousands of families like us. There are thousands of families searching for their loved ones. Their loved ones might be still in the desert, they might be hiding in a home, you never know.’
As a young person growing up in Israel, Maya Peretz had served time in the country’s military
Maya has been posting desperate pleas in the hope of finding her father, Mark, 51, who had gone off to search for her
Mark Peretz’s phone still appeared to be sending erratic pings indicating his location but Israeli authorities don’t have the manpower to deal with the search for one individual currently
Bodies were seen piled up in refrigerated trucks following the massacre
Other bodies were seen lying around the site of the festival on Sunday
Maya Peretz is seen dancing at the festival before the carnage ensued early on Saturday
Throughout Sunday, the full horror of what unfolded at the dance festival became clear as drone footage from above allowed for a birds eye view of the site.
One account of what unfolded told how revelers were ‘captured and bound and kidnapped.’
‘I saw videos with a male getting held by a group of Arab kids. Like, they’re like 16, 17,’ one survivor told TabletMag.
‘They’re kids, but they’re they’re young men already, and they’re holding this guy, and he looks as his girlfriend is being mounted on a bike and driven away from him. God knows what she’s going to experience… Women have been raped at the area of the rave next to their friends bodies, dead bodies.’
Several of these rape victims appear to have been later executed. Others were taken to Gaza. In photographs released online, you can see several paraded through the city’s streets, blood gushing from between their legs.
Dozens of abandoned cars, some overturned, could be seen lining the roadway out of the venue as panicked, desperate partygoers attempted to escape, only to be met with rockets and gunfire from waiting terrorists along their route.
Shocking footage from the aftermath of the attack shows empty festival tents, with many burnt out cars of those trying to escape strewn by the side of the road.
The festivalgoers could be seen dancing in the desert at dawn on Saturday.
Israelis could be heard shouting, running, and hurriedly getting into cars as they attempt to escape
Music lovers, mostly in their 20s and 30s, had gathered for the peaceful festival in the desert completely unaware that within minutes members of the Hamas militant group were about to descend from the skies and were also edging closer on the ground to inflict terror.
They appeared to be oblivious to the impending terror floating hundreds of feet above their heads in the distance in footage posted to TikTok.
The footage, shot soon after sunrise, sees the eagle-eyed cameraperson suddenly zoom in on grey dots in the air, which turn out to be Palestinian militants.
Hamas fighters managed to infiltrate Israel essentially undetected by paragliding across the normally heavily guarded frontier.
Moments later, the dancing stops.
‘Guys, we have red alert,’a voice over the loudspeakers warned. ‘Red alert.’
Initially, some of those dancing didn’t even notice the sound of explosions going off with the beat of the music drowning it out.
The festival has been described as being ‘more than a simple psychedelic trance music festival’ but an ‘international gathering of people from different styles and cultures, all together to celebrate Peace, Love, Union, and Respect’ – something which the Hamas fighters showed none of.
Music at what had been described as a ‘beautiful party’ with ‘good vibes’ played all night until round 6.30am when a siren began blaring warning of rockets.
Hamas terrorists then cut the electricity as rockets flew overhead and jeeps filled with gunmen ran onto the site.
All out terror ensues as festival goers are forced to run for their lives as armed Hamas fighters began shooting and kidnapping whoever lay in their path.
‘We heard sirens and rockets, tons of rockets,’ 27-year-old Millet Ben Haim said to the Washington Post. ‘We started running; we didn’t know where to go. Nobody knew what to do.
‘I took the car keys from a friend of mine that was really wasted and got as many people in the car as possible and started driving like crazy,’ Haim explained. ‘The people who stayed, most of them got kidnapped or murdered.’
When Haim couldn’t go any further, they were forced to run across fields to escape.
‘Every direction we ran we had more people shooting at us; we were running for two hours trying to escape. We started crawling in bushes. Eventually I realized I couldn’t run anymore.’
Haim said she ended up hiding behind trees and covering herself with leaves.
Israeli festival goers could be seen dancing in the desert at dawn on Saturday, completely unawares that within minutes members of the Hamas militant group were about to descend from the skies and inflict terror
In footage posted to TikTok revelers appeared to be oblivious to the impending terror floating hundreds of feet above their heads in the distance
Hamas fighters circumvented Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip by flying in via paraglider, according to the Israeli military (pictured: an alleged paraglider crossing into Israel)
‘We stayed silent and tried to reach the police. The police said they can’t help us because too many people were kidnapped.’
Terrifying footage shows the partygoers fleeing on foot over the sand to their cars, screaming as shots are fired.
Some are seen holding hands as they run away while others shout ‘go, go, go’. Police are seen helping the crowd evacuate.
Survivors of the attack said they were forced to hide under bushes as they watched victims get killed one by one, until they heard the sound of people rescuers speaking in Hebrew.
According to Israeli media, it took five hours for military to arrive.
Gal Raz, 31, is another of those who attempted to drive from the festival when he saw the place was becoming overrun with terrorists.
‘We heard shots. There were cars with corpses on top of them that blocked the road. We couldn’t get out,’ Raz said.
Upon getting into another car, they were ambushed.
Israeli festivalgoers run for their lives through the desert after being warned of an incoming rocket attack just as Hamas invaded the country on Saturday
People could be seen hurriedly packing their cars in a desperate effort to get away
‘There were about seven to eight terrorists, and they started to shoot at us in our car,’ he said.
Raz said that he saw other vehicles with dead bodies next to it as he made his escape.
Yaniv, an emergency worker who was amongst those medics who raced to the scene told public broadcaster Kan News he saw ‘at least 200 bodies of Israelis in the area’.
He said: ‘There are at least 200 bodies of Israelis in the area I was in. It was a massacre.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. It was a planned ambush. As people came out of the emergency exits, squads of terrorists were waiting for them there and just started picking them off.
‘There were 3,000 people at the event, so they probably knew it. They had intelligence information.’
Amongst those also hiding was Gili Yoskovich, who was forced to shelter beneath a fruit tree in the middle of a field shaking for three hours as bullets flew past her. She hid until she heard people speaking Hebrew and was rescued by Israeli soldiers.
The mother described how young people – whose night celebrating the end of the Sukkot religious holiday had turned to terror – were dying all around her as Hamas militants carried out their killing spree.
‘They were going tree by tree and shooting everywhere from two sides.
‘I saw people were dying all around. They were all over the place with their automatic weapons. I was very quiet. I didn’t cry, I didn’t do anything,’ she told the BBC.
Sitting on the back of a terrorist’s motorcycle, her outstretched arms pointing towards her helpless boyfriend, student Noa Argamani pleads for her life
‘I was… breathing, saying: ‘OK, I’m going to die. It’s OK, just breathe, just close your eyes’.’
Michael Atias said gunmen were systematically attacking festival-goers as they desperately fled the area.
He told the Times: ‘It started off as a beautiful party, with great vibes and energy. But [when] the rocket fire started. Many people panicked and started running to their cars.
‘We heard gunshots and later realized that the gunmen were targeting those who were trying to flee the party — they were waiting for them.’
One partygoer named Ortel said the rockets fired were quickly followed by gunshots being fired from jeeps full of gunmen.
She told the BBC: ‘They turned off the electricity and suddenly out of nowhere they [militants] come inside with gunfire, opening fire in every direction.
‘Fifty terrorists arrived in vans, dressed in military uniforms. They fired bursts, and we reached a point where everyone stopped their vehicles and started running.’
As people tried to run through the sand or drive off in their cars, more shots were fired.
Ortel said she hid in a bush where she watched ‘masses of wounded people thrown around’.
Meanwhile festival-goer Adam Barel told Haaretz that while they had been aware of the chance of rocket fire, the gunshots came as a shock.
He told the Israeli newspaper that he was among those fleeing to their cars but shots were being fired so he decided it was better to run. ‘People were hit. We hid. Everyone ran somewhere else,’ he said.
The organizers of the festival have been said they were ‘stunned’ and ‘share the grief of the missing and murdered families.’
‘We hope and pray that good news will reach us and you soon,’ the organizers wrote in a posting online.