SARASOTA, Fla. — The ripple effects of events happening in Gaza are felt in communities and among families in the Tampa Bay area. One of the survivors of the Oct. 7 festival attack in Israel will visit Sarasota next week to share his story at an important local gathering.
On that day, around 1,200 people died in the attacks on the Nova Music Festival and in Southern Israel communities near the Gaza border.
Yuval Siman-Tov, 23, said he barely managed to escape certain death by hiding in a nearby bush. As we approach Israel's Unity Day on May 14, Siman-Tov said he is speaking out because he's found his voice and wants to use his story to give listeners his perspective of what happened that day.
"We saw so many lights in the sky. We didn't know for the first few moments if it was fireworks or maybe rockets or missiles," Yuval Siman-Tov, who lives in Tel Aviv, said. "We didn't know for sure for the moment."
Siman-Tov said the 7th day of every month is now a stark reminder of what he called a lucky escape. He said he and some festivalgoers were in the desert early that morning enjoying the music when it was interrupted by gunfire. After the group realized they were in danger, Siman-Tov and his three friends hit the road hoping to find safety.
"One police car just drove towards us and they were like 'You need to stop because there are terrorists in front of you,'" Siman-Tov said. "We were like 'What is going on?' Then we started getting some bullets coming towards our car."
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They turned around, headed in the other direction, and drove south — only to discover they had run into more danger.
"They started shooting at us from like 100 meters and from the first bullets my friend was dead. They shot him," he said. "He got shot from the first ones and we were braced down like this with our hands over our heads," he added as he described their crouched position.
Siman-Tov said before the gunfire, he spotted a semi-truck stopped in the middle of the road along with several Hamas terrorists on motorcycles with their weapons pointed in their direction.
Two of his friends had been shot and killed. Siman-Tov himself had also been shot but he said the adrenaline of the moment did not let him feel it. He and another friend would eventually abandon their disabled vehicle and take off on foot.
"It was scary for me. I saw some bushes in the field and I decided to just pretend to be dead," he said. He hid for several hours until the coast was clear.
Siman-Tov will share his full harrowing story at an Israel Unity Day event held by the Jewish Federation of Sarasota-Manatee at 7 p.m. on May 14. The event takes place at the center located at 578 McIntosh Road.
The day commemorates Israel Memorial Day (Yom HaZikaron) and Israel Independence Day (Yom Ha’atzmaut). The event will feature the screening of the documentary 'SuperNova: the Music Festival Massacre'. Co-producer of the film, Noam Pinchas, will also be in attendance.
This event comes on the heels of nationwide protests at university campuses across the country. Leaders at the Jewish Federation of Sarasota-Manatee say the anti-Israel student demonstrations are a distraction from what started the war.
"This started on a specific day. It started on October 7 when thousands of Hamas terrorists came in specifically to kill civilians," CEO of the federation Shep Englander said. "We have to remember why we're here and how we got here... that's what the student protesters seem to want us to forget."
Those protests, including one on May 1 at the University of South Florida, have called for divestments from Israel over the ongoing war in Gaza, which some have characterized as a genocide. Englander said some of the sentiments about some of the things happening in the war are valid — but as those views are expressed, certain lines shouldn't be crossed.
"We are concerned about civilian casualties in a war but we can't allow this to become a one-sided violent demonstration that tears down universities or throws them into chaos and intimidates anyone who is Jewish or supports Israel," Englander said. "It's tragic because we want people to be able to protest. But they need to protest peacefully and not harass or intimidate other students and cause chaos or prevent the education of everyone around them."
Englander also said he applauds USF President Rhea Law for enforcing the school's policies and preventing a small group of agitators from harassing Jewish students on campus. The protest disrupted classes and campus activity on May 1, according to an earlier press release.
Siman-Tov, who volunteers with an organization that cares for the elderly, said he is using his experience from the attack to foster conversations and do his part toward bringing lasting peace to his community.
"I want all of this to stop. I want the alerts to stop and I want the hostages to come back," he said.
Meanwhile, one Sarasota couple is hopeful their son Segui Dekel-Chen, who is still believed to be held hostage by the Hamas terrorist group, will regain freedom and return home safely as soon as possible.