May Hayat broke down in tears as she stood silently at the scene of the Israeli music event, where she had just a month before nearly avoided death in a Hamas attack.

When Hamas terrorists attacked the open-air Nova music festival on October 7, Hayat, 30, was working as a bartender just a few kilometers from the Gaza border line. On that day, 260 festival attendees were killed, and other people were taken prisoner.

By hiding beneath a stage, getting blood on her face from a victim, and acting lifeless, she managed to escape her horror.

Hayat returned to the venue near Kibbutz Re’im in southern Israel for the first time on Monday, hoping it would help her come to terms with her trauma and unlock the tears that she says have flowed properly only once in the past month.

“If you think they (Hamas) are an organisation acting in self-defence…, they are terrorists, they want us dead, they can’t justify any of this, they don’t care,” Hayat, who lives in Tel Aviv, told Reuters.

“They also killed Arab Israelis here, everyone who lives in Israel is a target to kill,” she said.

Warning that “they will eventually reach other countries”, she added: “I hope you will wake up before it comes to you.”