Bedouin Israeli police officer recalls saving hundreds from Hamas at Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7
An Arab Bedouin-Israeli police officer recalled the traumatic events of the Oct. 7 attack, when he succeeded in saving hundreds of Nova Music Festival attendees during the Hamas invasion and brutal massacres in southern Israel.
"At first, we thought the IDF was shooting. Then we realized what was happening," Israeli Police Officer Ramo Alhuzeil, told Arab Israeli i24news reporter Yoseph Haddad.
Some 3,000 to 4,000 music fans had gathered at the rave festival outside of Kibbutz Re’im, adjacent to the border with Gaza. He remembers the confusion and chaos during the terror attack on the festival when roughly 3,000 terrorists from the Gaza Strip invaded and massacred 364 Israeli civilians and took around 40 hostages. Approximately one-third of the 1,200 Israelis murdered during the attack were at the festival.
Once Alhuzeil realized what was happening, he and his fellow police officers quickly stepped in to protect the civilian festival attendees from the slaughter.
"At some point, about 20 people from the party ran toward us and screamed: 'Terrorists are shooting at us! Someone's seriously wounded!' I pulled out my gun, turned and ran, 10 to 12 policemen behind me. My vehicle, which we had just been standing next to, took a direct hit from an RPG," he recalled.
During the i24 interview, Alhuzeil relived the horrific situation and the difficulty in evacuating hundreds of festival attendees into safety amid the life-threatening event.
"I started to evacuate people, and my first goal was to find a car. God helped me, and I found a Nissan Juke with a full tank of gas. I took the maximum amount of people I could fit into it and we drove until we reached a cement barricade with an Israeli policeman. I drove back and forth for three hours," he said.
While the Bedouin Israeli police officer was glad he was able to rescue hundreds of civilians on Oct. 7, he also expressed his deep sorrow for the police officers who lost their lives during the intense battles with Hamas terrorists.
"It's not important how many terrorists I killed. It's important how many policemen we lost, and how many people I was able to save," he said.
Alhuzeil is just one of numerous Arab Israelis who were either victims of the Hamas terror attack or heroically fought against the Gazan terrorists.
Muslim Bedouin Israeli IDF soldiers in the western Negev Desert region played a crucial role in repelling the Hamas fighters on the day Israelis refer to as the 'Black Shabbat.'
In February, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his wife Susan visited the site of the Nova Festival to honor the victims of the unprecedented Hamas massacre.
“This is sacred ground. To see the pictures of these young people reminds my wife and me, Susan, so much of our family and the families who lost loved ones here. And we pray for the souls of those lost and the families who remember them,” Pompeo told reporters.
Some Israeli-Bedouin citizens were abducted into the Gaza Strip by Hamas terrorists and their allies on Oct. 7, some of whom remain captive in the coastal enclave to this day.
Ali Ziadna, a Bedouin Israeli whose brother and niece are still being held hostage in Gaza.
Earlier this week, Ziadna attended a special UN Security Council session at the UN headquarters in New York, where the UNSC debated a published report about the systematic sexual violence perpetrated against Israelis on Oct. 7.
During the visit, Ziadna confronted the Palestinian UN ambassador envoy, Riyad Mansour.
"Why did they kidnap my family?" he asked bitterly, saying they are 'Muslims, who are like me and you' and have been 'left in the tunnels hungry, in pain, and naked..."
The All Israel News Staff is a team of journalists in Israel.