Tribe Of Nova hosts memorial on anniversary of festival attack

Tribe Of Nova has hosted a memorial at the Hangar 11 event hall in Tel Aviv to mark one year since the Hamas attack on psytrance festival Supernova on October 7, 2023.

With the death toll placed at around 360 people, the majority of those civilians, it is considered to be the deadliest attack on a music event in history, and has been called the “biggest-ever disaster at a music festival”.

The memorial began at 10:15PM and ran through to midnight, featuring tribute film screenings, musical performances, candle lightings and speeches, including from former hostage Noa Argamani whose abduction was caught on video.

“On this evening we will stand together as one, to support each other, hear the voice of pain and longing, share stories and memories, and find comfort in the power of love and hope,” wrote Tribe Of Nova ahead of the event on Instagram.

The festival helps run The Tribe of Nova Foundation, a non-profit organisation aiming to “support long-term recovery from trauma for survivors and the bereaved families.”

A memorial exhibition called 06:29AM The Moment Music Stood Still was launched this year in Tel Aviv, and has since taken place in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and opens today in Buenos Aires.

On September 26, the BBC released a documentary about the attack called We Will Dance Again. Its description states: “Using testimony of survivors, mobile phone footage, and footage from Hamas, the film shows how a dance festival turned to confusion then fear and chaos when Hamas arrived and began to kill partygoers.”

It forms part of a group of programmes the BBC is producing around the October 7 anniversary, with the next set to document Life and Death in Gaza.

Outside of the dance music world, the anniversary marks a deadly year of bloodshed, the loss of civilian lives, and destabilisation in the Middle East.

The attack on the Supernova was part of a wider Hamas operation attacking southern Israel, with the death toll placed at around 1,200 people and more than 200 people taken as hostages.

The next day, Israel declared war on Hamas and has been attacking the densely populated Palestinian territory of Gaza with intense bombing and a ground invasion.

The death toll in Palestine from Israel’s attack is reported as around 42,000 people, with Oxfam International stating: “Conservative figures show that more than 6,000 women and 11,000 children were killed in Gaza by the Israeli military over the last 12 months.”

Recent figures from the UN said an estimated 90% of the population of Gaza (around 1.9 million people) have been displaced, with a report presented to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in March finding there are "reasonable grounds" to believe that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians.

The modern day Israel-Palestine conflict dates back decades, with many considering the starting point as the 1947 United Nations’ vote by British mandate to partition the land of Palestine into two states – one Jewish, one Arab – following the violence against Jewish people in Europe during the Second World War and Holocaust. The partition was not accepted by Palestine or neighbouring Arab countries, leading to multiple wars and violence in the region. There has been increasing Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory since 1967.

The violence in the wider Middle East region has also escalated in the last year, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently stating that Israel faces war on seven fronts, including with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Iran.

Since October 8, 2023, Hezbollah has launched an estimated 1,500 attacks on Israel, with Israel launching nearly 9,000 attacks into Lebanon, which recently escalated from a bombing campaign into a ground invasion.

An estimated 60,000 civilians have been displaced from their homes in northern Israel, while an estimated 1.2 million civilians have been displaced in Lebanon, with the BBC reporting: “Israel’s air strikes have brought destruction to almost all parts of the country, including Beirut.”

With Israel also recently launching an attack against Houthi targets in Yemen, and Iran launching its largest-ever attack on Israel last week, firing around 200 ballistic missiles at military targets, fears of an all-out regional conflict in the Middle East, which could expand the involvement of allied nations from further afield, are high.

A UK cabinet minister said the government and other Western allies have urged Israel to show "restraint", but has not ruled out further UK military support for Israel.