Smoke climbs as the clashes in between Palestinian teams and also Israeli pressures proceed in Gaza City, Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023. 
An musician supervisor that had actually a number of acts set up to play the Paralello Universo event in Re’im, Israel, near the Gaza Strip, and also that existed throughout the assault on the event, explains a scene of mayhem and also horror.
Raz Gaster had numerous musicians playing the digital music event, where at the very least 260 people were killed and also others were abducted amidst an assault by Hamas operatives Saturday (Oct. 7).
Gaster gotten here on website at the celebration occasion at around 5:30 a.m. on Saturday, with the event — which had actually begun the evening prior — indicated to go up until around 5 p.m. Saturday night. An spin-off of the Paralello Universo event brand name began in Brazil virtually twenty years earlier; the Israel occasion was called Supernova Sukkot Gathering after the Jewish vacation and also was organizing a number of thousand guests in a country place near the Gaza Strip, with a schedule concentrated on the digital psytrance category.
Everything altered, however, when rockets and also rockets introduced from the Gaza Strip by Hamas beginning touchdown on the website a hr later on, component of an extensive assault on Israel.
“Around 6:30 in the morning we started hearing explosions,” Gaster claims. “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 claims that at this moment, event safety recommended everybody to come down on the flooring and also place their hands over their go to defense. But after 5-10 mins, Gaster claims, “the policemen shouted in the microphones, ‘Okay, get in your cars and go.’”
“The moment the policemen said ‘go now,’ I ran,” Gaster remembers. “I didn’t wait, because we know it’s a rocket attack. You need to act quick.”
Because his vehicle was parked near the phase really near where he was standing, Gaster and also 3 various other males — consisting of Universo Paralello founder Juarez Petrillo — had the ability to promptly enter Gaster’s vehicle and also eliminate mins later on, after Gaster saw to it the musicians he collaborates with were additionally in automobiles getting away the website.
Gaster claims he was “driving super fast, not stopping for anything, even when missiles are coming down. My instinct told me don’t stop for shelter, just drive… We drove so fast we didn’t even know what was happening.”
By the moment Gaster and also the others made it to a vacation home rented out by the manufacturing group, situated around 30 kilometers far from the event, they had actually begun obtaining messages and also call informing them that mins after they repelled from the website, Hamas boxers had actually gotten here “with machine guns, with RPGs, with grenades, and just slaughtered whoever they could.”
He claims that these opponents gotten here by bikes, quads and also vehicles around 20 mins after rockets began touchdown.
Gaster and also those he was with transformed the suite right into a command facility, getting in touch with IDF, various other Israeli safety solutions and also “all of our friends that we know personally that have firearms that have connections that can go there.”
During this time around he and also the others were getting messages from pals and also coworkers still on website, that reported that the opponents were shooting guests in their automobiles as they tried to repel. A good friend of Gaster’s messaged to state that the vehicle driver of her vehicle had actually been fired which she and also an additional close friend were making believe to be dead to stay clear of being eliminated. He claims these females inevitably surrendered for 5 hrs prior to being saved. As of Sunday (Oct. 8), Israeli rescue solution Zaka has actually reported at the very least 260 bodies at the website.
“People were hiding in ditches, hiding in bushes, hiding in the woods, hiding wherever you can think of,” claims Gaster. “We were getting horrible messages from friends saying, ‘Please help us, they are shooting people next to us.’”
Gaster claims it took IDF and also unique pressures a couple of hrs to show up on website, with those that existed trying to protect themselves in the meanwhile.
“At the party there was already a police force, like any licensed party,” Gaster claims, “and they were the first ones to try to give assistance by fighting… We are Israelites, so most of us have military experience, and a few from the production managed to kill some terrorists with their bare hands and their weapons.”
Gaster claims that the proprietor of the manufacturing business behind the event, Nova Tribe, eliminated 2 of the opponents after taking their weapons. Gaster claims he and also the group at the manufacturing suite were being sent out on-site places from different guests and after that sending out these places to the proprietor, that after that mosted likely to assist these guests.
“It was 24 hours of working to find as many people as we could and get as many signs of life as we could,” claims Gaster.
Universo Paralello was not origintally planned to happen at the Re’im website, with coordinators relocate to this place just 2 days prior to it began, when an additional website in southerly Israel failed. The brand-new website at Re’im included a set of phases, with the Israeli manufacturer Artifex playing the mainstage when the assault began. Gaster was informed that the opponents shut the roadway right into the event from both sides so guests might not run away.
Other event guests have actually been abducted by Hamas. As a team of in between 15-20 individuals collected at the manufacturing suite, they, claims Gaster, “started seeing videos on social media of hostages and people we know that are kidnapped and bodies we could recognize [as] our friends. Many friends are still missing, and we still don’t know where they are.”
He estimates that there are still 600-700 individuals missing out on from the event. All however one musician on the event schedule has actually left Israel, with Gaster and also others placing musicians on any type of offered trip right into Europe as airline companies terminated trips amidst the strikes.
While Gaster had actually simply gotten here to his house in the north of Israel when Billboard spoke to him at around 1 a.m. regional Israeli time (he claims the IDF manages the majority of the location in between where he was and also where he lives, so he really felt risk-free to drive house), he claims that amidst the mayhem they are all “still trying to find any signs of life.”
“We are a peaceful community, we are a musical community, we do it for the creation of fun,” claims Gaster. “We only wanted to dance and have a good time and enjoy music together, and it turned into a nightmare.”
