The Story of the Massacre at the Roadside Shelter on October 7, 2023

The Last Recording (Hebrew title: Death Shelter: The Last Recording), by Assaf Liberman and Nadav Ben Zur, is about a terrible massacre that occurred at a roadside shelter near Kibbutz Re’im on that terrible day, October 7^th, 2023.  A number of young adults in their 20s who had been at the Nova music festival, fleeing for their lives, took refuge in this shelter.  Four were taken hostage by Hamas terrorists and only seven survived. 

Viewers consider yourselves warned -- the film is shocking and difficult to watch.  It is based on a cellphone recording made by Ayelet, who was killed that day.  The sounds, the whisperings, the shooting are all authentic and so hard-hitting.  There is also visual footage of the young people all huddled together, all so very real.  The film includes interviews with the survivors, telling the story of what happened that day, and with the parents of those who were so brutally murdered.  The interviews are conducted, in an extremely sensitive manner, by Assaf Liberman, a radio talk show host for Reshet Bet.

Osama, a Bedouin man from the Negev who was working on the security team for the Nova festival, was trapped in the shelter with the others.  When he stepped out to try to reason with the terrorists, he was grabbed and killed. 

Here is the story that so many people have heard – the terrorists threw grenades into the shelter and Aner, who loved the dancing and was a soldier, bravely kept picking them up and throwing them back out.  He was a true hero.  The footage of the goings-on outside the shelter is from a dashcam, also so very real and authentic. From that footage we can see the grenades exploding outside.  Eventually, the terrorists threw a grenade deep inside and some people, including Aner, were killed.  This is when Hersh Goldberg-Polin lost his hand.  Then the terrorists grabbed four of the people inside and took them away as hostages.  Hersh was one of them (only to be executed later by the terrorists while in captivity).  Also, Alon, who loved to play piano, was taken hostage. 

Finally, the terrorists came back in and shot at everyone, just to be sure. 

The survivors, beautiful young people, today are dealing with the trauma of what they experienced and the fact that they survived. They laid there that day for hours, wounded and traumatized, weeping, waiting for help, waiting to be rescued.

The Last Recording (documentary, 60 minutes) is available from Go2Films.