METAIRIE, La. — Monday was a day of prayer and remembrance as the Jewish community marked the deadliest attack in Israel’s history one year ago.
The sun was rising on a kibbutz in southern Israel where more than 3,000 young people gathered for a music festival on October 7, 2023.
Yoni Diller shot video of friends celebrating and having fun at the festival as rocket fire streaked across the sky on the horizon.
“We were on a dance floor, you know, waiting for the sunrise,” Diller told WWL Louisiana. “So before even the sun came up, we see hundreds of missiles coming from Gaza. At the beginning, we didn't understand what's happening.”
Diller, a filmmaker from Tel Aviv soon realized he and his friends were under attack.
“After 30 minutes, we see this massive attack happening, we go out and all the cars went different places that there was a big traffic, there was everything was jammed,” Diller said.
Hamas militants launched the attack from across the border in Gaza about three miles away.
Diller said at one point as they were fleeing the festival grounds, they saw a woman in a car full of bullet holes who had encountered attackers just up the road.
“I see terrorists on these trucks, white Toyota trucks, like three white Toyota trucks with machine guns, like shooting everyone like in a duck range.”
Diller and his friends ditched their vehicle and hid in a nearby river as bullets flew over their heads.
When the firing stopped, he said they walked across the desert for hours before arriving at a village 14 miles away.
“Like we're just walking like an exodus in an open desert. We're just walking and walking in the background. When we see like what's happening in the back, you see black smoke, white smoke like World War Z. Like, you see just you don't understand what even is happening.”
In all, Hamas fighters killed more than 1200 people at the festival including 40 Americans.
They also kidnapped hundreds of others.
“My friends didn't deserve this,” Diller said. “You know, five of my friends got murdered. One of them was kidnapped.”
Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans CEO Robert French said it’s important for Diller and his fellow survivors to tell their story.
“We have to keep telling the stories of what happened here on that day because this isn't just Israel's fight, this is Israel's fight against terrorism and the world's fight against terrorism too,” French said. “Israel's on the front line defending our values and our democracies across the world.”
Diller said what happened on Israeli soil is unacceptable in humanity.
“I believe in peace. I was a true believer before October 7th. I would say that right now, I'm a bit pessimistic because the terror is so deep, and the hatred is so deep.”
On this solemn one-year anniversary of October 7, the war in Gaza sparked by the attack shows no end in sight.
