‘I had to come here today to close a chapter,’ says Nova survivor Yovel Sharvit Trabelsi from the site of the massacre.
The 27-year-old returned to Re’im for the first time today since the love of her life was shot dead in front of her eyes here – exactly one month after their wedding day.
She was trapped under his body for five hours, forced to listen as terrorists raped a woman and executed her metres away.
Yovel was left so traumatised she was unable to get out of bed, but she made a promise to her late husband that she would become a ‘lioness’ for him – just as he wanted.
As part of her quest she put on a powerful display at a fashion show for Nova survivors last year covered by the Daily Mail.
Our images went round the world showing her with a bullet wound in her head, symbolising the death of her husband, and a dress covered in hands as reference to the rape.
Now, a year on from that awful day, she returned to the scene of the massacre as part of her ‘rebirth’.
‘It all came back to me today,’ she told the Daily Mail. ‘I remembered all the roads as I drove in – how we were in the car, laughing, listening to music.’
Yovel had married Mor Meir Trabelsi, 27, exactly one month before in a huge ceremony ‘full of love and happiness’. ‘In retrospect, our wedding party was a farewell party for Mor,’ she says.
Minutes after arriving at the Nova festival, Hamas gunmen stormed the venue. Mor desperately tried to drive them to safety, but he was shot in the head and killed instantly.
The car rolled over and smashed into the ditch, landing upside down – and sending his lifeless body on top of Yovel, trapping her underneath.
Here she sat, silently, hugging Mor’s corpse for five hours. Yovel took his blood and wiped it on herself to play dead.
She listened helplessly as female hostages were dragged into Gaza, screaming out for help.
She heard terrorists shooting the bodies strewn along the road, in case they were alive. Then she heard the rape.
‘Her husband was alive, they made him watch them rape her,’ she said. ‘I was so afraid. Afraid they would hear me.
‘I heard her screams, and I still hear her screams in my nightmares. To this day, I hear that woman in my head.
‘She begged for help and I couldn’t help – I couldn’t… it’s so hard.
‘The terrorists were so happy, there were shouts of joy. I can’t tell you what exactly they were saying, but it sounded like they were proud of their act.
‘The woman was crying because she was in such pain. She was screaming, “Stop tearing my clothes off!” These are words I will never forget.
‘After they raped her they put her and the husband in the car and fired an RPG at it. They killed them, blew them up.
‘It must have lasted for 20 minutes, but I could not tell you. I had no sense of time because of the fear I was in. That time felt like an eternity.’
Yovel’s friends Shira Perets, 27, and Shahar Loka, 29, were in the car and survived the crash.
‘We all hid,’ she says. ‘My friend looked at me throughout. They were whispering, “Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet.”‘
Finally, after five hours the IDF came and rescued them – but they were unable to take Mor’s body as terrorists remained in the area.
‘It was the hardest moment of my life,’ says Yovel.
‘I told him I was sorry. I asked Mor for forgiveness and I kissed him for the last time. I said, “Don’t forget me, I will meet you in the Garden of Eden.”
‘I knew he wanted more than anything for me to be alive and to be safe, he would have wanted me to go. It’s what he would have wanted, for me to save my life.
‘Now the most important thing is to continue to live my life.’
Yovel has been left deeply traumatised by the horrors that she witnessed that day.
‘I feel like a baby learning to walk,’ she says. ‘No-one prepared me for this, I was not taught how to live with such trauma or how to deal with that.
‘At first I was in bed most of the time. I didn’t want to eat, I didn’t want to work, I didn’t want to go out.
‘I had such anxiety and panic attacks. My heart was always racing. I was in hospital for 10 days.’
But finally she decided she would make herself better, in honour of her husband.
‘Mor saved me, he has given me this life as a gift. He was a positive person and he wanted me to take that from him.
‘His positive soul is here with me, it is keeping me strong. I am sure that he wants me to be a lioness.’
Returning to Re’im was a ‘milestone’ for Yovel. ‘I needed to close a chapter,’ she said. ‘I needed to get this weight off me.
‘It felt like for the first time I was breathing clean air. I even smiled after this.
‘October 7 is the day I lost Mor, but now it is also the day or rebirth for me.’
Yovel travelled to the service at Re’im with her family and Mor’s parents, Linda Trabelsi, 55, and her husband Baruch, 57.
At 6.29am, the exact time the missile strike started, the last track from the Nova festival was played yesterday in memory of those who died.
‘When I heard that I remembered the last hug he gave me,’ says Yovel. ‘I felt it. It was a really strong hug.’
They lit a candle at a memorial for Mor and each remembered him in their own way. All around them were hundreds of photos of the others who died that day.
‘It is the first time I saw all the other photographs,’ she says. ‘All this year my whole mind has been on what happened to Mor.
‘Now I am thinking about my friends. I lost two very good girl friends that day too, Liron Barda and Shani Ben Ami. They were 27.
‘I thought, I can’t believe I lost these friends and I didn’t even think about it. It all hit my at once.’
They last saw Liron who was working at the bar three minutes before the attack. ‘We got to the party at 6.13am.
‘Me and Mor went to Liron and we did a cheers together. This is my last memory of her. Today she is in the Garden of Eden with Mor.’
Yovel has recently started studying fashion illustration and says she is growing ‘day by day’.
‘I need to get a little bit of happiness back into my life. I have started to dress decently. I have started to care about my appearance more.
‘In the future I want to tell mine and Mor’s story all over Israel, but now I am happy to be able to get out of bed every day.
‘Some days I’m happy, other days I’m sad. It changes – I have no control over it. I can wake up in the morning and cry and I can wake up in the morning and smile.’
But while she says she is committed on living her life in Mor’s honour, there is only one place she truly wants to be.
‘I told his mother today, all I would do if I could ever get the chance, would be back there, holding his body, cuddling him again for those five hours.
‘I just wish I could go back to that moment.’
Israel’s president Isaac Herzog, who was accompanied by his wife Michal, told mourners: ‘This is a scar on humanity, this is a scar on the face of the earth.’
Before the minute’s silence for the victims, organisers played the last track from the festival that day in memory of those who had died.
‘Ten minutes ago, I was fine. Then I heard the track and I felt him here – I was dancing with him,’ said Yoram Yehudai, whose son Ron, 24, was killed.
Ron was shot dead alongside eight other people who were hiding in a rubbish dumpster. Another seven survived.
After the ceremony, the families recited Kaddish, the mourners’ prayer. Some gave speeches reflecting on the massacre.
‘It’s the first time I have been back to Nova since last year,’ said survivor Shelly Ishai. ‘I was shaking driving up the road, but it was important to be here today.’ While Shelly managed to flee in a car, two of her friends died.
Those who attended were shaken as explosions sounded nearby in Gaza – a reminder of the conflict which the massacre ignited on October 7.
‘There isn’t a day I don’t cry, but at least we have a grave to visit,’ said Yuval, 70, whose grandson Eliran Mizrahi, 23, and his fiance Maya Bitton, 22, died.’Many of the hostage families don’t know where their family is. It’s a living hell.’