On the evening of October 16, The New York Times reported that the Palestinian political group Hamas released a video to the public showing a hostage from its attack on the Supernova Sukkot Gathering music festival. In the video, a 21-year-old woman named Mia Schem receives wound treatment, says she is in Gaza, and pleads to be returned home to Israel.
Since October 7, Israel and Hamas have been at war after Hamas initiated a series of surprise assaults against Israel. The attack on the music festival, held near Israel’s Re’im kibbutz, was one of the earliest attacks. The Supernova Sukkot Gathering, produced by the organizer Nova, was meant to be a weeklong trance music festival following the Jewish holiday Sukkot. The New York Times has reported that about 3,500 people attended the event. Ticket buyers were not given the festival’s exact address until hours before the event, which was ultimately held roughly three miles from the fence that divides Israel and the Gaza Strip.
The attack on the festival was preceded by the sounds of sirens and rockets, according to attendees. “We didn’t even have any place to hide because we were at [an] open space,” an attendee named Tal Gibly told CNN. “Everyone got so panicked and started to take their stuff.” Speaking with The New Yorker, Hanoch Hai Cohen recalled the gunmen’s coordination as they fired live ammunition, grenades, and mortar into the crowd. “They showed up in an organized formation,” he said. Video from the festival showed a woman named Noa Argamani being kidnapped by a group of men.
According to the Israeli rescue service Zaka, 260 people were killed during the Re’im festival attack. Among those killed in the attack was Jake Marlowe, a former bassist in the British hardcore band Desolated. “War is never a solution. Men will never learn this,” All Ages Records wrote as part of a eulogy for Marlowe. “An endless cycle of death and destruction to achieve nothing.”
Since the massacre at the music festival, at least 1,400 Israelis have been killed and 3,500 have been wounded; Israel responded with attacks and airstrikes on the Gaza Strip that have killed more than 2,800 Palestinians and wounded 10,800, according to Al-Jazeera. Israel’s military has told over one million Palestinians to evacuate northern Gaza. The United Nations has said the order would lead to “devastating humanitarian consequences.”
Over two million Palestinians in Gaza have lived under an Israeli blockade for the last 16 years. Through the blockade, Israel has restricted the movement of goods, such as electronics, medicine, and food, into Gaza. Following Hamas’ attacks on Israel, the Israeli government ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip, with the country’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, declaring that “no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” would be allowed into Gaza. Human Rights Watch has declared that several of the Israeli tactics are considered war crimes, including the alleged use of white phosphorus as a weapon and “collective punishment”—that is, punishing civilians for acts they themselves did not commit. Israel has also blocked aid supplies from crossing the border from Egypt into Gaza.
Immediately after the initial attacks, Bruno Mars canceled a concert in Tel Aviv. Musicians including Bono, Madonna, and Katy Perry have shown their support for the victims of the Hamas attacks, and figures in the music world, such as Irving Azoff, Billy Porter, and John Fogerty, signed an open letter calling “on the entertainment community to speak out forcefully against Hamas, to support Israel, to refrain from sharing misinformation about the war, and do whatever is in their power to urge the terrorist organization to return the innocent hostages to their families.”
Many more artists—including Deerhoof, Liv.e, KeiyaA, Nourished by Time, Heems, Lower Dens, Oso Oso, Kehlani, and Salva—have expressed support for Palestine and Gazans. “Palestine has to be free,” Nashville guitarist William Tyler posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “Free from Hamas, free from Israel. I pray for the thousands of people, many of them children- about to be killed/starved to death in the name of retribution.”
Artists for Palestine UK also organized an open letter—signed by musicians such as Massive Attack’s Robert “3D” Del Naja, Robert Wyatt, Heba Kadry, and James Ford—calling for “an immediate ceasefire and the opening of Gaza’s crossings to allow humanitarian aid to enter unhindered.”
In a longer reflection on Instagram, Iranian American musician Rostam wrote, “I don’t think people realize what they are doing when they discuss what’s going on in the Middle East and remove the humanity of the people of Gaza. Please, please, please, consider how your mind was changed when you realized what it meant to show up for Black Lives, what it felt like when you realized the weight of saying ‘Black Lives Matter’ to a racist society that was systematically configured to deny that notion.”
He continued: “It’s also white supremacy culture that normalizes posting about what’s going on in Gaza and removing Palestinian life from the discourse, erasing those humans completely. I want to try to shed light on that erasure. I can’t stand by and witness it, because that erasure is not neutral, it is a further injustice— and it is justice and only justice, I truly believe, that can provide us a path towards peace.”
Rostam concluded, “Collectively we have to try to imagine a safe world for our Jewish brothers, our Palestinian sisters, our children, our parents.”
In recent days, British musician and actor Riz Ahmed wrote, “What’s happening in Gaza now, and has been happening in Palestine under the Occupation for decades, is horrific and wrong.” In addition, he called for “an end to the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza’s civilians and vital infrastructure, the denial of food, water, and electricity, and the forced displacement of people from their homes.”
A-Trak, who is Jewish, wrote on Instagram, “As you can imagine, an onslaught at a music festival hits very close to home here.” The producer and DJ added:
Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead and the Smile is married to an Israeli visual artist, and he has collaborated with Israeli musicians Shye Ben Tzur and Dudu Tassa. On X, he wrote, “Condolences to the families of the innocent concert goers, children and civilians of all ages murdered, raped or abducted in these massacres. It’s impossible not to despair.”
Mark Ronson, who is also Jewish, wrote on Instagram, “I’m saddened and horrified by the barbaric violence committed by Hamas against my people.” He continued, “I am equally saddened and equally horrified by the escalation of the cycle of violence that will harm not just Israelis but also the millions of Palestinians who have been denied basic rights for so long.”
Others closer to the event also released statements. The Supernova Sukkot Gathering was meant to serve as the local edition of a Brazilian festival called Universo Paralello. In a statement in the days after the attack, a spokesperson for Universo Paralello wrote:
