The subject of the disturbing photograph of a young woman in a red shawl fleeing the attack at the Nova festival on October 7 has emerged to share the story of how she survived while Hamas massacred her friends.
Vlada Patapov, a 25-year-old mother, told the Daily Mail that she went to the desert rave on a whim to accompany her friends, and her sleep was interrupted when the sirens sounded at 6:30 am.
“Immediately I heard gunshots. He was loud and very close to us,” she said. “For a few seconds I didn’t know what was happening and then Matan just shouted that we had to run to the car.”
Vlada Patapov flees the attack on the Nova music festival on October 7.
Panic began a race for survival that forced Ukrainian-born Patapov to don her now-iconic red shawl and frantically flee amid gunfire before jumping into the back of a car and escaping the scene of a massacre.
While she and two of her friends were able to flee to safety, several other friends became some of the more than 360 people killed by Hamas terrorists at the festival.
Patapov, a wedding planner, went to the festival with his friends Matan and Mai, and several others, to relax over the holiday weekend.
Several of Patapov’s friends died in the massacre.
Although he was concerned that the location of the rave was so close to the Gaza border, he said he thought it would be safe, otherwise it would not have been held in the first place.
However, their fears came true when rocket fire from Gaza began bombarding Israel on the morning of October 7.
Although Patapov and others assumed this was another wave of attacks that would eventually be deflected by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, it quickly became apparent that the rockets were only the first wave of an all-out attack on the Jewish state.
Bodies of some of the 380 victims of the attack at the Nova festival.
Evacuation soon began as Hamas terrorists descended on the festival grounds, and Patapov echoed claims that some of the gunmen disguised themselves as IDF soldiers to lure victims.
“We thought it was an Israeli soldier and we would be fine, then a guy a few cars ahead got out and the soldier, who I now know was a terrorist, shot him,” Patapov said of the trap set throughout the evacuation. . route.
“We all ducked and the bullets started hitting the cars around us but, I don’t know how, they didn’t seem to hit us,” he told the Mail.
Israeli soldiers inspecting damage at the site of the festival attack. REUTERS
Escaping in Matan’s vehicle quickly became impossible as the exits were cordoned off and the vehicle eventually became trapped in the desert countryside.
The trio then ran across the desert, where footage was taken of Patapov as Hamas shot dead several people, including friends.
In the chaos, Patapov and Mai were separated from Matan, and the two women burst into tears after reaching a forest where they could hide for cover.
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“We didn’t know what to do or where to go and the only thing I could think about was Romi,” Patapov said of his son. “I kept seeing her face and said someone has to survive for her.”
Eventually, the two women were picked up by a man on the road who carried them out of the desert along with five other people and to safety at a military base in Tze’elim.
Patapov was later able to reconnect with Matan, who had arrived at another military base 20 minutes away.
Once she got home, Patapov said she gave her daughter “the biggest hug she’s ever had.”
Despite waking up every morning grateful to have survived the ordeal, Patapov admitted that she grapples with survivors’ guilt of the terrorist attack that killed more than 1,200 Israelis.
“’Sometimes I feel guilty that I survived and that others didn’t and what happened to me only lasted maybe 18 hours, but for many the pain still continues and I think about the hostages still in Gaza. We must not forget them,” he stated.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn