October 7: Story of Survival from BGU Student IDF Reservist
October 7: Story of Survival from BGU Student IDF Reservist
March 21, 2025
The Jerusalem Post – Shani, Neomi, and Nastia are three impressive young Israeli women who survived the October 7 massacre at the Supernova music festival and now serve as reservists in the IDF’s Battalion 926 of the Southern District of the Home Front Command, a force responsible for providing assistance to civilians in times of emergency and patrolling different areas in Judea and Samaria.
Now, almost a year and a half after the harrowing events, the three warriors tell their awe-inspiring stories of survival and resilience and their brave decision to join the reserve service despite the horrid experiences they went through. The Jerusalem Post shared their first-person accounts of that terror-filled day.
A 26-year-old acro-yoga instructor and MA student in chemistry at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), Shani got her first invitation to lead an acro-yoga workshop at the Supernova festival, which she was very excited about. On October 6, she had met with a friend to make their final preparations before the festival.
We arrived at the site a couple of hours before it all began. At 6 a.m., the sun began to rise, and I thought it looked beautiful. I took out my phone, which I don’t usually do, and took a picture that became iconic, depicting the serenity before everything changed. I had danced for three hours and decided to take a break. At 6:30, we suddenly saw flashes of light, which I thought were fireworks. But it turned out to be far from that.
The music stopped abruptly. We thought we shouldn’t get into our cars yet because of the sheer number of rockets being fired. It crossed my mind that we were in an ‘open area,’ out of the Iron Dome’s protection, so we stayed in place, protecting ourselves between tables.
After 20 minutes, a policewoman came and shouted something like: ‘This is much worse than it looks! Get out of here!’
I thought Israel must have taken out a Hamas official and that it would be over soon. We packed up our things and got into the car, and we saw an immense traffic jam. Two of my friends got out of the car, as one had forgotten her phone. In the meantime, we slowly moved forward in the traffic jam.
After 20 minutes, our friends sent us their location. They were already on Route 232 [which connects the kibbutzim adjacent to the Gaza Strip]. We drove around the complex and arrived at a wooded area, where we saw five policemen with their weapons drawn. Our friends found us and got into the car. We were the fifth car going up the road. Then we heard crazy screams: ‘They shot her!’
I froze in place, thinking about the police with their guns and the screams about the gunfire. I finally thought to myself, ‘Could these be terrorists?’’
Two minutes later, we saw people running away, and I thought that they were probably seeing something that we weren’t. So I told my friends that we were getting out of the car. We began running with them, with horrible sights all around. I thought about running to Kibbutz Be’eri. Of course, we weren’t aware of the situation in the kibbutz at all….
Read the rest of Shani’s personal October 7 story on The Jerusalem Post>>
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