The Israeli dad of a 20-year-old woman who had been attending a music festival that came under attack from Hamas terrorists early on Saturday morning has now gone missing.
Mark Peretz, 51, raced to the area where the trance music festival was taking place, just three miles from the Gaza Strip in the hope of rescuing his daughter, Maya, from the unfolding terror.
Mark knew he was heading into danger as he left his home in Rishon LeZion and began the journey south.
During the car ride, he was in contact by phone with his family but gunshots sounded when suddenly the call was cut off.
Maya, meanwhile, was with a group of about 12 people who initially managed to escape in a car as they sped away from the Tribe of Nova music festival – but were later forced to abandon the vehicle altogether as terrorists continued to pursue them.
At least 260 people have been confirmed dead at the music festival. Bloodied bodies were stacked in tents while they await identification
The father 20-year-old Maya Peretiz, attending a music festival that came under attack from Hamas terrorists has gone missing. She is pictured along side dad, Mark, 51
Footage of the festival before the attack was posted on social media
The terrorists gunned down as many revelers as possible and on Sunday night horrifying photos emerged of bodies piled up in a tent at the festival.
Authorities believe 260 people were massacred at the event at which between 3-4,000 people have been in attendance.
Many of those kidnapped by Hamas terrorists include women both young and old. The terrorists even shot the legs off hostages to prevent them from escaping.
While Maya managed to successfully get away, her group eventually managed to find safety in a police station for three hours.
Following Mark’s disappearance, his son’s friends, all of whom are ex-military set about searching for him. They quickly located his car but found no trace of him.
His phone still appeared to be sending erratic pings indicating his location but Israeli authorities don’t have the manpower to deal with the search for one individual given the current crisis.
The full horror of what unfolded at the dance festival became clear as drone footage from above allowed for a birds eye view of the site
‘[He] dropped everything and drove there. Even given the situation, given the fact that there were rockets being thrown over our heads. Given the fact that he saw Hamas terrorists riding into Israel, taking parachutes into Israel… he went to go rescue Maya,’ Mark’s daughter-in-law, Jessica Cohen, 24, told The New York Post.
He was about 20 minutes away from reaching his daughter when his phone suddenly cut off.
‘We were on the phone with him and we heard gunshots, and don’t know exactly sure what happened,’ Jessica explained. ‘Everyone in Israel is hugging one another, but we’re living in a nightmare. We’re all living in this crazy terror attack, and it’s insane. It’s really just unfathomable.
‘The police are dealing with so much other stuff right now. There are so many terrorists still out there, and the streets are really blocked off everywhere we go,’ Cohen explained.
‘There are thousands of families like us. There are thousands of families searching for their loved ones. Their loved ones might be still in the desert, they might be hiding in a home, you never know.’
As a young person growing up in Israel, Maya Peretz had served time in the country’s military
Maya has been posting desperate pleas in the hope of finding her father, Mark, 51, who had gone off to search for her
Mark Peretz’s phone still appeared to be sending erratic pings indicating his location but Israeli authorities don’t have the manpower to deal with the search for one individual currently
Bodies were seen piled up in refrigerated trucks following the massacre. Other bodies were seen lying around the site of the festival on Sunday
Maya Peretz is seen dancing at the festival before the carnage ensued early on Saturday
As of Sunday night, Hamas was believed to be holding more than 100 hostages while the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are reporting more than 700 Israelis dead with 2,150 injured.
Throughout Sunday, the full horror of what unfolded at the dance festival became clear as drone footage from above allowed for a bird’s eye view of the site.
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Dozens of abandoned cars, some overturned, could be seen lining the roadway out of the venue as panicked, desperate partygoers attempted to escape, only to be met with rockets and gunfire from waiting terrorists along their route.
The festivalgoers could be seen dancing in the desert at dawn on Saturday, completely unaware that within minutes members of the Hamas militant group were about to descend from the skies and were edging closer on the ground to inflict terror.
They appeared to be oblivious to the impending terror floating hundreds of feet above their heads in the distance in footage posted to TikTok.
The footage, shot soon after sunrise, sees the eagle-eyed cameraperson suddenly zoom in on grey dots in the air, which turn out to be Palestinian militants.
Hamas fighters managed to infiltrate Israel essentially undetected by paragliding across the normally heavily guarded frontier.
Moments later, the dancing stops.
‘Guys, we have a red alert, ‘a voice over the loudspeakers warned. ‘Red alert.’
Initially, some of those dancing didn’t even notice the sound of explosions going off with the beat of the music drowning it out.
All-out terror ensues as festival goers are forced to run for their lives as armed Hamas fighters begin shooting and kidnapping whoever lies in their path.
‘We heard sirens and rockets, tons of rockets,’ 27-year-old Millet Ben Haim said to the Washington Post. ‘We started running; we didn’t know where to go. Nobody knew what to do.
‘I took the car keys from a friend of mine that was really wasted and got as many people in the car as possible and started driving like crazy,’ Haim explained. ‘The people who stayed, most of them got kidnapped or murdered.’
When Haim couldn’t go any further, they were forced to run across fields to escape.
‘Every direction we ran we had more people shooting at us; we were running for two hours trying to escape. We started crawling in bushes. Eventually, I realized I couldn’t run anymore.’
Haim said she ended up hiding behind trees and covering herself with leaves.
Israeli festival goers could be seen dancing in the desert at dawn on Saturday, completely unaware that within minutes members of the Hamas militant group were about to descend from the skies and inflict terror
In footage posted to TikTok revelers appeared to be oblivious to the impending terror floating hundreds of feet above their heads in the distance
Hamas fighters circumvented Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip by flying in via paraglider, according to the Israeli military (pictured: an alleged paraglider crossing into Israel)
‘We stayed silent and tried to reach the police. The police said they can’t help us because too many people were kidnapped.’
Gal Raz, 31, is another of those who attempted to drive from the festival when he saw the place was becoming overrun with terrorists.
‘We heard shots. There were cars with corpses on top of them that blocked the road. We couldn’t get out,’ Raz said.
Upon getting into another car, they were ambushed.
Israeli festivalgoers ran for their lives through the desert after being warned of an incoming rocket attack just as Hamas invaded the country on Saturday
People could be seen hurriedly packing their cars in a desperate effort to get away
‘There were about seven to eight terrorists, and they started to shoot at us in our car,’ he said.
Raz said that he saw other vehicles with dead bodies next to it as he made his escape
The organizers of the festival have been said they were ‘stunned’ and ‘share the grief of the missing and murdered families.’
‘We hope and pray that good news will reach us and you soon,’ the organizers wrote in a posting online.
