Live updates: Israel-Hamas war (cnn.com)
23 min ago
Festival survivor says he covered himself with corpses in a bunker to stay alive
Rafael Zimerman says he hid out in a bunker
near the music festival that was attacked by Hamas in southern Israel on Saturday.
On the day of the attack, he recalled running with his friends from "a lot of rockets." He said a car then took him and others to a nearby bunker, where 40-50 people eventually were hiding from the attack. He was near the back of the bunker as he was one of the first to get there, he told CNN's Anderson Cooper Tuesday night.
Zimerman heard police fighting the attackers and said that at one point gas was thrown into the bunker, which he said reminded him of the gas used by Nazis to kill Jews during the Holocaust.
"With the gas, you cannot breathe," he said. "It's impossible to breathe after 30 seconds."
Following the gas, the attackers entered the bunker and began shooting and throwing flash-bang grenades.
"I just covered myself with dead people, a lot of dead people," he said. "So I stayed for there inside like for hours, like just waiting for die, you know? I just wanted to die in peace because I suffered so much from the gas."
Zimerman, who has shrapnel wounds from the attack, said he did not move while covered by dead people in the bunker. Eventually, six people escaped, he said.
"I'm a miracle. I'm a survivor and I have to be glad," Zimerman added.
Israeli officials counted at least 260 bodies near the site of the Nova festival, outside Re’im, after the slaughter by Hamas Saturday morning.
"We were partying, you know, just partying and the life, young people, just living," he recalled. "A lot of people from all the world. It doesn't matter their religion. It doesn't matter from where you are," he said.
