Tribe of Nova festival survivor’s suicide note was fake

The message published by an anonymous person on the Facebook page of a group of survivors, which was widely shared, suggested that a man had committed suicide several months after not being able to save the life of a victim raped and killed by Hamas. It was a fake.

A farewell letter fabricated from scratch. An Israeli journalist investigated and demonstrated that a message shared at the end of August on social networks, attributed to a survivor of the massacre perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, 2023, did not correspond to any verifiable fact. Adam Shafir revealed the lie on Channel 13’s “Hazinor” (“the tip” in French) show on Wednesday, August 28. “The story that came out in recent days about a Nova survivor who saw horrors and committed suicide has not left a single dry eye. (…) It is a complete fake.”he had announced a little earlier on X.

The message, written in the first person, was presented as the last words of a survivor of the attack on the Tribe of Nova festival on October 7. It was addressed to the victim of a rape perpetrated by Hamas members, whom the author blamed for not having been able to save. After describing the terrorist attack and a scene of sexual violence, the message ended with a request for forgiveness. “I have reached rock bottom, I can’t live anymore. (…) I come to you, in the next great world, I promise to save you there and protect you. Please forgive me!”we could read in this text, also shared on X on Sunday August 25.

As noted CheckNewsthe message, in Hebrew, had first been shared two days earlier on a Facebook group of music festival survivors, by a person who identified herself as the author’s sister. In her introduction, she stated: “I’m publishing a letter from my little brother who committed suicide as a result of the things he saw. He was a Nova survivor. I don’t want to publish his name.” The letter has since been deleted from the group, but has circulated widely on social media, relayed in particular by influential figures. Among them, the Israeli author Hen Mazzig and the German ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert, later admitted that the message was not verified.

In the program “Hazinor” broadcast on Wednesday, journalist Adam Shafir explains that he contacted the police, emergency services, the Ministry of Health and the Institute of Forensic Medicine, without any of these Israeli authorities being able to corroborate this specific case of suicide. The journalist was finally able to contact the person who posted the message on Facebook.

In their exchange, recorded and partly broadcast in the report, she claims that it is not her story, but that of a friend. When Adam Shafir questions the veracity of the shared story, his interlocutor formulates “full confessions”, in the words of the journalist. “The story is absolutely false, it’s all made up, it’s not real. No, there was no suicide. It turns out it was ultimately his invention. [celle de son amie]“she acknowledged.

A volunteer from the Israeli NGO Safe Heart, which provides psychological support to survivors of the attacked festival, also stressed that it was a fake to the London weekly. The Jewish Chronicle. Delilah Schwartz reports corresponding with the administrator of the survivors’ Facebook group and believing that “something was starting to smell bad”, when she learned that the author of the publication had changed her version of events several times to the group administrator.

The Nova Tribe Community Association also confirmed that it had not found “no indication of the veracity of this message”reports The Jewish Chronicle. Delilah Schwartz told the weekly: “horrified” to discover that the letter was fake. “Most survivors already feel intense feelings of guiltshe confides, judging such a staging “very dangerous and insane”.