Three years after Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, a long stretch of highway in southern Israel remains a haunting open-air memorial, marking where festivalgoers’ desperate attempts to escape ended in slaughter.
asserted
attempts → remain → slaughter
The highway, Route 232, was the only way out of the Nova music festival — but for hundreds fleeing the attack, it became a road to tragedy as its roadside bomb shelters turned into death traps and surrounding fields into killing grounds.
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shelters → flee → grounds
As rockets flew overhead, terrified revelers streamed onto Route 232, where concrete bomb shelters built to protect civilians from rocket attacks are as ubiquitous as bus stops.
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shelters → fly → stops
Some crammed inside, believing they had found refuge.
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they → cram → refuge
Others abandoned their cars and scattered across the countryside, desperately searching for cover.
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Others → abandon → cover
Hamas gunmen hunted them down, firing into the shelters, hurling grenades through their narrow entrances, and then pursuing and ambushing those who fled on foot and by car.
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who → hunt → car
Today, the highway is referred to by locals who spoke to The Post as “Death Road” — a sprawling, miles-long memorial where one bullet-riddled shelter gives way to another, their walls covered with smiling portraits of the dead, flowers and handwritten tributes.
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walls → refer → dead
Beyond the asphalt, makeshift shrines dot the fields where people were gunned down trying to escape.
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people → dot → fields
At the nearby Nova festival grounds, photographs stand where thousands once gathered to dance, while faded “Bring Them Home” posters still hang from residential gates.
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posters → stand → gates
Together, the memorials trace the extraordinary reach of the massacre, marking the places where people were murdered across miles of roads and farmland.
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people → trace → roads
Nearly 300 people were killed along a 33-mile stretch of Route 232 and connecting roads, including festivalgoers, motorists, cyclists, farmworkers and police officers, according to the October 7 Parliamentary Commission Report.
uncertain
people → kill → Report
Among those who escaped was Israeli-American Gilad Karplus, 34, who was shot in the head while fleeing through the fields.
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who → escape → fields
“People scattered to all different places for survival,” he told The Post.
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he → scatter → Post
A road with nowhere to run
Karplus had not come to Nova to party.
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Karplus → run → Nova
“I was a professional who came to work at the festival as a masseuse, to heal people,” he said.
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he → come → people
“On the morning of the attacks I saw my entire childhood area, where I grew up, going in flames while at the festival.”
When rockets began raining down, Karplus and his friends packed their massage equipment into a Jeep.
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Karplus → see → Jeep
But moments later, Karplus, who had served in the Israeli special forces, soon recognized the distinctive sound of AK-47 gunfire.
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who → serve → gunfire
“They were shooting, and before I noticed, all these kids around me just fell to the ground,” he recalled.
He jumped into the car with friends, beginning a desperate escape through a landscape swarming with terrorists.
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He → shoot → terrorists
Rather than follow the crowds onto the highway, he urged his friend to drive through the surrounding fields.
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he → follow → fields
“I was thinking they were going to attack more people on the road, which was correct, and in the kibbutzim,” he said.
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he → think → kibbutzim
“So I told my friend to drive off-road.”
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I → tell → road
“Then we found there were also terrorists off-road,” he continued.
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he → find → road
As they drove, Karplus recalled finding an apparently attacked military vehicle, with blood on its exterior.
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Karplus → drive → exterior
He retrieved an M16 rifle but said it was too badly overheated to fire.
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it → retrieve → rifle
Shooting, screams and smoke surrounded them.
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Shooting → surround → them
“Just for a moment, time stood still, and it was like time died,” he said.
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he → stand → moment
At one point, gunmen in pickup trucks approached while some of the group were outside the Jeep.
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some → approach → Jeep
Karplus and the others tried to draw the attackers away so their friends could hide.
uncertain
friends → try → attackers
“They just started chasing us towards the fence of Gaza,” he said.
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he → start → Gaza
One friend was abducted into Gaza and later killed, according to Karplus.
uncertain
friend → abduct → Karplus
The remaining group sped through agricultural land, only to encounter more attackers near Kibbutz Be’eri.
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group → remain → Be’eri
“They came from both sides,” he recalled.
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he → come → sides
“They shot at us, and one of the bullets hit my side of the car, and I was shot in the back of the head through the side.”
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I → shoot → side
He remained conscious, using his hat to stem the bleeding while clutching the useless weapon.
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He → remain → weapon
“I did not feel any pain because of adrenaline,” he said.
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he → feel → adrenaline
“It was crazy, and I felt like I was going to die.”
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I → feel → ?
Eventually, the group found refuge in a bathroom next to a bicycle shop, where they hid for six and a half hours.
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they → find → hours
“For the entire 6.5 hours, we could hear them; they just didn’t know we were there,” he said.
uncertain
he → hear → them
“I told [my friend] to breathe through her nose to not attract sound.”
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I → tell → sound
His thoughts turned to his grandmother, a Holocaust survivor.
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thoughts → turn → grandmother
…and 35 more, not listed.
The Aporia
