Nova Festival survivor says she 'relives' October 7 attacks 'every day'

Noam Ben David, a survivor of the October 7 Nova Festival attack, told ITV News Correspondent John Ray she "relives" the memories "every day"

Noam Ben David is a survivor of Israel’s deadliest day - except there are times she doesn't feel like a survivor at all.

Nothing, she told ITV News, prepared her for the anguish and depression with which she has struggled for the past 13 months.

Even harder, is the grief for the man she calls her "angel", her boyfriend David Newman. "I relive it every day," she said.

"It is a nightmare from which I never wake up."

The story of the Nova Festival – where Hamas killed 364 people - has been told many times, but familiarity cannot mask its horror.

Noam escaped death by hiding in a deep, steel rubbish skip along with a dozen or more terrified young people.

She shows us a video of them, crouched, fearful and silent amid the bin bags, as automatic gun fire rings out.

David - believing rescuers were close by - asked her to count how many were sheltering. They were his last words.

"Then I heard ‘Allahu Akbar’ and gunshots and the last thing I heard from David was his last breath," she said.

Noam was one of just four people eventually rescued from the hiding place.

But to the terrible toll of death that day, she adds one more recent victim.

"I have a friend; she committed suicide," she said.

"She was really struggling. She needed help and when she got it, it wasn’t enough. It made her more depressed."

Her friend was Shirel Golan, who took her own life on her 22nd birthday last month, and was also at the festival.

Shirel’s family have told Israeli media that she had suffered greatly from PTSD and become too withdrawn to reach out for support. The Israeli government insists there is help for those who ask for it. Noam believed Shirel needed more.

"To think people survived Nova, but they cannot take it anymore, and they give up,’’ she said.

Noam is recovering from the physical wounds she received that day. She was shot through her hip and foot, and was in a wheelchair before she learned to walk again.

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But the mental scars may never fully heal. She is changed forever. So too is her country, and so too is Gaza.

More than 44,000 Palestinians - the majority civilians - have been killed by Israel’s bombs and bullets since October 7.

The main leaders of Hamas are dead. And around 100 Israelis captured that day are missing, either killed or still held hostage.

Even a young woman like Noam, who says she has dreamt of peace with Israel’s neighbours since she was a young girl, cannot foresee an end to the bloodshed.

"I have this fear inside me. So do all Israelis. We want to feel safe. But there are two sides right now and they are not listening to each other," she said.

"I don’t know how it’s going to end, maybe, it will end when people are not told how to hold a gun at a young age."

Noam says she wants to feel love not hate.

"I blame humanity. We had the Holocaust, we said never again, How? How am I here sharing this story with you?"

"I want to see love . David said to me his reason for being on this earth was to bring joy and he did and that is what I want to continue in his memory."

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