The personal belongings of festival-goers are seen at the site of an attack on the Nova Festival by Hamas terrorists from Gaza, near Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, Oct. 12, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

i24 News — Israel’s Health Ministry has denied a claim made by a survivor of the Hamas-led massacre at the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7 that about fifty survivors have committed suicide since the atrocities.

Guy Ben Shimon, a survivor of the massacre, spoke on Tuesday at a parliamentary hearing for a State Audit Commission on the treatment of the survivors of Oct. 7.

“Few people know, but there have been almost 50 suicides among the Nova survivors. This number, which was true two months ago, may have increased since,” Ben Shimon said, emphasizing that many of his friends who escaped the massacre could not recover from what they had experienced.

The Health Ministry said after his testimony that “figures of the number of suicides and the number of those institutionalized among survivors of the Supernova festival are not known to the Health Ministry and the medical system and are not correct.”

Dr. Gilad Bodenheimer, head of mental health services in the Health Ministry, said in a statement that such “rumors” are “not correct, and this was also made clear during and at the end of the [Knesset] hearing.” Bodenheimer said the ministry checked with groups who have been treating Supernova survivors and found no basis for the claim.

However, it’s been widely known that many Oct. 7 survivors have needed psychological help following the atrocities they endured and witnessed.

“There are many survivors who had to be forcibly hospitalized due to their psychological state. My friends are not getting out of bed, neither am I,” Ben Shimon described their condition since the Oct. 7 attack.

“I am practically unable to do anything. I had to get a dog to help me survive in my daily life. The goal for all of us is to return to work and function normally, but we cannot do it without adequate help,” Ben Shimon added.

The parliamentary hearing focused on alleged failures of the state bodies towards the survivors of Oct. 7. There were complaints about the difficulties, notably bureaucratic, that the survivors faced in getting their post-traumatic stress disorder recognized, as well as in receiving the needed care.

“Why should I constantly prove what I experienced? Why am I forced to go back to the details of what I experienced for them to believe me?” Naama Eitan, another survivor of the music festival, asked during the hearing.

“I participated in a study that monitored my pulse and other parameters and revealed how bad my health is. I sleep on average two hours a night. Each morning at seven o’clock, I relive the moments when I was hidden in the bushes with terrorists passing by me. I can no longer move on my own, I need to be constantly accompanied,” she described.

During the Hamas-led attack, 364 people were brutally murdered at the Nova Music Festival and dozens were taken to Gaza as hostages. In total, Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas massacred 1,200 people and kidnapped 253 others as hostages during their surprise invasion of southern Israel. Mounting evidence has revealed the terrorists perpetrated systematic sexual violence, including torture and mass gang rape, against Israelis during the onslaught.

According to recent studies, 600,000 Israelis were awaiting psychological support since Oct. 7.