Did 50 Nova festival survivors commit suicide? The shocking testimonial heard at the Knesset
'This number, which was true two months ago, may have increased since' says Guy Ben Shimon, a survivor from the Nova Music Festival, during a parliamentary hearing in Israel
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Following the Hamas-led massacre at the Nova Music Festival on October 7, about fifty survivors have committed suicide, revealed Guy Ben Shimon.
Ben Shimon, a survivor of the massacre, spoke on Tuesday at a Parliamentary hearing for a State Audit Commission on the treatment of the survivors of October 7.
"Few people know, but there have been almost 50 suicides among the Nova survivors. This number, which was true two months ago, may have increased since," Ben Shimon said, emphasizing that many of his friends who escaped the massacre could not recover from what they had experienced.
"There are many survivors who had to be forcibly hospitalized due to their psychological state. My friends are not getting out of bed, neither am I," he described their condition since the October 7 attack.
"I am practically unable to do anything. I had to get a dog to help me survive in my daily life. The goal for all of us is to return to work and function normally, but we cannot do it without adequate help," Ben Shimon added.
The parliamentary hearing focused on alleged failures of the state bodies towards the survivors of October 7. There were complaints about the difficulties, notably bureaucratic, that the survivors faced in getting their post-traumatic stress disorder recognized, as well as in receiving the needed care.
"Why should I constantly prove what I experienced? Why am I forced to go back to the details of what I experienced for them to believe me?" Naama Eitan, another survivor of the music festival, asked during the hearing.
"I participated in a study that monitored my pulse and other parameters and revealed how bad my health is. I sleep on average two hours a night. Each morning at seven o'clock, I relive the moments when I was hidden in the bushes with terrorists passing by me. I can no longer move on my own, I need to be constantly accompanied," she described.
During the Hamas-led attack, 364 people were brutally murdered at the Nova Music Festival. According to recent studies, 600,000 Israelis were awaiting psychological support since October 7.
The Israeli Ministry of Health says that they do not have any information or statistics about the claim made of 50 survivors who have committed suicide.