‘I was on the ground praying to God’

"I have nightmares every day; it was as if I was killed, and today I have to be reborn," Mazal Tazazo tells Kathimerini. On October 7, 2023, she was with her friends at the Nova music festival in Israel when the terrorists attacked. She pretended to be dead as Hamas men were killing anyone in their path nearby. Her friends Danielle Cohen and Yohai-Ben Zecharia were among the 364 victims of the festival, while she managed to survive with severe physical injuries. A year later, Mazal recalls the wild images that unfolded in the festival's surroundings in an interview that halted several times due to the emotional strain.

On October 6, Mazal visited the Nova music festival with her friends Danielle and Yohai. Under the theme "friendship, love, and infinite freedom," the festival was held in the Negev Desert, a distance of 5 km from the Gaza-Israel border. As Mazal recounts, "I...