Hamas militants killed around 250 people who attended an outdoor music festival in an Israeli community near Gaza over the weekend, a volunteer who helped collect the bodies said today.
"In the area where the party took place, and at the party itself" it could be estimated that "there were 200-250 bodies," said Moti Bukjin, a spokesman for the humanitarian NGO Zaka, based on the number of trucks that ferried away the corpses.
At least 700 people were killed in southern Israel when Hamas forces stormed across the border, shooting people in the communities and towns near Gaza before security forces began fighting back.
The music festival was attended by several hundred people near the Israeli kibbutz of Reim, witnesses said, when Hamas gunmen opened fire.
Footage on social media showed dozens of people running through fields and along a road, escaping militants as gun shots were heard.
"The music stopped and there was a rocket siren," a young woman called Ortal told Israel's N12 News television. "Suddenly out of nowhere, they started shooting."
Another party goer, Esther Borochov, said a car had rammed her vehicle as she tried to flee before a young man told her and her friend to jump into his vehicle before he was shot point blank while she played dead until she was rescued.
"I couldn't move my legs," she said at the hospital. "Soldiers came and took us away to the bushes."
