Hamas militants parade naked body of German raver

The bodies of more than 100 festival-goers and staff from a variety of countries are reported to have been found in the aftermath of one of Hamas’s first attacks on Israeli soil.

Shani Louk was identified by family members because of her distinctive tattoos. Picture: Instagram

Israeli forces were shocked to discover that the death toll at a music festival attacked by Hamas militants was much higher than expected.

The militants stormed the festival and surrounded the site, killing young people who tried to flee, in one of the first atrocities committed during Saturday’s inital incursion.

On Sunday, soldiers found dozens of people still alive hiding in a nearby underground water canal – without any mobile phone signal to alert them to their plight.

However, that good news was immediately tempered by devastating reports from the scene that soldiers had found more than 100 bodies of festival-goers and event staff from a variety of countries had been killed.

Hamas began the shock attacks and unspeakable atrocities on Saturday morning, sparking widespread panic at an all night rave, and in dozens of communities.

Revellers at the all-night Nova festival three kilometres from the Gaza-Israel border – celebrating the Sukkot Jewish holiday – realised they were in great danger as rockets exploded around them around 6.30am.

Elsewhere along the border it was the shock of having motorcyclists pull up alongside travelling vehicles and fire indiscriminately into the cars.

Israeli authorities say the militants went into 22 different communities to kill and kidnap. In some places they knocked on the doors of homes, which were innocently opened by unsuspecting families. In Sderot, at least nine people were killed at a bus shelter, and motorcyclists mowed down as they rode by. It is believed more than 250 people were killed and scores of people have been taken into the Gaza Strip as hostages.

People walk past an Israeli police station in Sderot after it was damaged during battles to dislodge Hamas militants who were stationed inside on Sunday. Picture: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP

For Yoni Asher, his deeply distressing moment came when he couldn’t contact his wife, and so he tried to track her phone.

His wife Doron had been with his two young daughters, five-year-old Raz and Aviv, 3, at the home of Doron’s parents, Gadi and Efrat Mozes, at Nir Oz Kibbutz, where militants had gone from house to house dragging people away.

He tracked his wife’s phone to Khan Younis, in Gaza’s south, and then he saw pictures of her and their children on social media with Hamas soldiers.

It appears some of the earliest atrocities were committed by Palestinian militants firing into a gathering of nearly 1000 music-goers enjoying Brazilian trance music at the Nova festival held in the desert not far from Kibbutz Re’im. Within minutes those dancing and drinking ran for their lives across the dusty farmland to reach their cars. But quickly the cars became jammed in the chaos and the militant gunmen arrived, firing into the vehicles.

People then ran into a nearby forest to hide, where one eye witness said they felt they were in a firing range trying to dodge the bullets.

An eyewitness known as Gibly told CNN she saw one concertgoer shot dead outside a van, and another was dead in the vehicle’s passenger seat.

“It was so terrifying and we didn’t know where to drive to not meet those evil … people,” she said. “I have a lot of friends that got lost at the forest for a lot of hours and got shot like it was a range.”

Many didn’t make it. At least 12 festival-goers were killed, some after being raped and brutalised, and dozens are believed to have been taken hostage.

Shani Louk, a German national with a Polish father, was killed, her naked body mutilated and paraded by the militants on the back of a truck yelling “Allahu Akbar” and claiming she was an Israeli soldier. At one point one of the militants spits on her bloodied body in distressing video of the scene.

Louk, a graphic designer and tattoo artist, was immediately identified by family members because of her distinctive tattoos. “We are devastated,’’ a cousin said.

Friends and family members of another couple Noa Argamani and Avinatan Or, shown to be kidnapped after fleeing into the forest area from the festival, have pleaded for news.

A harrowing social media post shows Argamani is on the back of a motorcycle held between two men as she reaches out to bypassers screaming “Don‘t kill me! No, no, no”. Or is seen with his hands behind his back at gunpoint surrounded by men wearing singlets, and one in a mask.

Or’s brother Moshe told Israeli Channel 12 he had seen the footage. “I saw his girlfriend Noa in the video, scared and frightened. I can’t imagine what’s going through her at all – screaming in panic on a motorcycle, when some scumbags are holding her and they don’t let her go,” he said.

“My brother, who is a big guy, two metres tall, trains four times a week, a really strong guy. They held him maybe four or five people and just led them towards the (Gaza) strip”.

Esther Borochov survived the festival massacre by playing dead in a car after a driver trying to help her escape was murdered at point blank range.

“I couldn’t move my legs,” she told Reuters at the hospital. “Soldiers came and took us away to the bushes.”

Parts of the military outfit of a Palestinian gunman who infiltrated into Israel, lie on the ground near the southern city of Sderot. Picture: JAck Guez/AFP

Other social media posts show another blonde haired woman from the festival covered in blood, hands tied behind her back and being forced at gunpoint into a vehicle.

A distraught mother told Israeli radio she feared for the safety of her music-loving daughter Roni Gonen, and her friend, Gaya Halifa, who had been kidnapped, hearing only male Arabic voices when she rang her phone.

A journalist reporting from the Soroka Hospital in Beersheba said one injured man he had spoken to had been travelling in his car with his family unaware that Hamas had launched a series of attacks when a group of around 15 motorcyclists pulled up alongside and fired, killing his wife.

Authorities say at least 50 hostages are being held in underground tunnels in Gaza. Associated Press journalists saw one elderly Israeli woman being driven across the border into Gaza on a golf cart.