Attack at Israeli Electronic Music Festival Leaves at Least 260 People Dead | Billboard News

An attack took place Saturday, Oct. 7, at the psytrance festival Universo Paralello near the Gaza Strip amid fighting between Hamas and Israel.

Tetris Kelly:
An attack on an electronic music festival in Israel and the country as a whole has left the region in chaos. At least 260 people are dead after a Hamas attack at an outdoor electronic music festival in Israel near the Gaza Strip, according to CNN. An unknown number of attendees also seemed to have been abducted by Hamas operatives.

The organizers of the festival released a statement that read in part “Universo Paralello and Tribe of Nova production team are stunned and in pain. We reinforced and shared the grief of the families of the missing. We are doing everything in our power to assist the security forces, maintaining constant contact with them and remaining in the area to aid in the search for the missing.”

Manager Raz Gaster, who has multiple artists playing at the festival, describes what he witnessed on Saturday morning saying, “Around 6:30 in the morning, we started hearing explosions. We went out of the backstage and we saw a full bombardment everywhere. It was hundreds of rockets and mortars flying from everywhere and explosions all around us.” Gaster escaped to an offsite villa but said he received texts and calls minutes later saying Hamas fighters had arrived with machine guns, with RPGs, with grenades and just slaughtered whoever they could.

President Biden released the following statement: “In this moment of tragedy, I want to say to them and to the world and to terrorists everywhere that the United States stands with Israel. We will not ever fail to have their back. We’ll make sure that they have the help their citizens need and they can continue to defend themselves.”

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