An Israeli music festival photographer describes fleeing Hamas militants while watching attendees get shot behind him

• A 20-year-old photographer told Insider how he escaped Hamas militants at the Nova music festival.
• As he drove away with friends, he said he could hear gunfire in all directions.

A photographer for an Israeli trance-music festival in southern Israel described the harrowing experience of fleeing Hamas militants opening fire at the event as part of a series of coordinated surprise attacks on Israel on Saturday.

Ido Derby, a 20-year-old Israeli photographer who was capturing the Tribe of Nova festival, where at least 260 bodies have since been found, told Insider that missile sirens began to blare at around 6:30 a.m.

"We weren't panicked because missiles in our country aren't something unusual," he said, speaking to Insider from his home in Rishon LeTsiyon, where he fled to after the festival.

(The call, which took place on Monday, was interrupted by a siren midway through as the Iron Dome intercepted missiles from Gaza heading toward central Israel. Derby went to a shelter and called back.)

Shortly after the sirens started blaring on Saturday morning, Derby said he followed protocol, collected his belongings, and got into a car with two friends.

They started to drive towards a shelter, not realizing anything unusual was happening. The car got stuck in traffic as many festival-goers were trying to make their way to safety, he said.

"Suddenly, we started hearing shooting from our right side," Derby recalled, adding that he initially thought it might be the Israel Defense Forces in action.

As the traffic started to clear, Derby said he considered getting out and walking due to the challenging driving conditions caused by mud and dust from numerous vehicles.

However, he said he now knows that would have been the wrong decision. At the time, Derby was unaware of what was rapidly unfolding nearby.

His mother called him, crying, to tell him that there were reports of attacks in the area. To reassure her, he told her he was fine but said he started to fear his own demise.

"I could now see in the mirror everyone else running for their lives, people falling down," he said.

Videos of the festival, also referred to as Nova, show a group of Hamas paragliders descending on the crowds, with other videos showing attendees fleeing the scene.

Hamas militants opened fire on the festival-goers and took hostages, with those not fleeing playing dead or hiding in trees.

The car Derby was in veered toward a forested area, away from the festival. He asked the driver to stop so he could pee, he said.

"About 10 seconds after this, I heard shooting from like 100 meters away from us," Derby recalled.

He said the realization that Hamas militants were likely nearby caused him to have a panic attack. "I couldn't move, even to get back into the car," Derby explained.

His friends lifted him into the car, where he started to call the police several times. He said he received no response.

They drove again, and he said they passed a white Isuzu vehicle with Hamas militants in it.

"Those guys shot everything that moved, " Derby later said in a message to Insider.

He said his group started driving frantically, initially southward, where they heard gunfire, and then northward, where they also heard shots being fired.

"You couldn't drive anywhere," he explained. "Every direction, you could have been in a situation where you'd get shot."

He added that when he looked in the car's wing mirror, he could see "people falling, getting shot, injured."

Derby added: "The noises were terrible."

Derby and his two friends stayed put in the forest before starting their drive again, taking shelter in Kibbutz Tze'elim — about 15 miles away from the festival.

In the evening, they drove home to Rishon LeTsiyon.

"God saved us," Derby said. "It was something like a miracle."