GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A woman who survived Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on a music festival in southern Israel visited Grand Rapids Tuesday to share her story.
Amit Ganish spoke Tuesday evening at Chabad of Western Michigan.
That morning, she explained, she was at the open-air Tribe of Nova music festival alongside about 3,000 others when militants opened fire . Hundreds of people were killed.
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“I wanted to survive for my family, for my boyfriend,” Ganish told News 8. “I just understood that I needed to survive.”
She told attendees that when the bullets began flying, she ran.
“I saw a lot of bullets toward me and I understood….I turned to the forest and started to run,” Ganish recounted.
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Eventually, she and a friend ended up hiding in the bushes. They waited there for nine hours, she said, surrounded by attackers with no access to food or water.