The massacre at Supernova is one huge, terrible chain of demonic cruelty and horror. I have heard fragments of stories that I cannot repeat. They are lodged in my brain like shards of glass. I can’t examine them, at least not yet. Maybe one day, I will be able to do that research and get those sharp slivers out. Let the cut me until it bleeds. Sadistic torture and brutality. Sexual violence so awful and extreme that it makes you sick. It speaks of a group of people so depraved, so full of hate, with so much disdain for human life, that they would commit these crimes while laughing and filming themselves. It is inconceivable.

This monstrous group shot entire families with young children execution style. They burned down houses with babies inside. They murdered 90 year old Holocaust survivors in cold blood. They killed dogs defending their homes and laughed about it. They shot unarmed young people fleeing for their lives. And they killed a severely handicapped child in a wheelchair without a moment’s hesitation.

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Erick and Ruth Peretz were a familiar sight at raves and music festivals in Israel. Ruth Peretz was 16 years old and suffered from cerebral palsy, muscular atrophy and mental disability. But that didn’t stop her from living her life to the fullest. Although she didn’t have much control over her body, Ruth loved music and dancing. So her dad, Erick, took her to parties whenever he could.

Erick was a happy-go-lucky man who loved surfing and dedicated his life to the care of his daughter. Ruth’s half-sister, Yaarit, told Ynet: “For years he would go to these festivals and bring Ruth, because it made her really happy and she loved it. There were times he would take her and she didn’t want to come home. It was their tradition, to go to festivals.”

Ruth was mostly nonverbal and could speak only a few words. Only her family knew how to communicate with her. From the moment she was born, Erick dedicated his life to her care. He stopped working and became her fulltime carer. Her older sister Yamit says: “Over the years, Ruth became the light in the house. My father took me by the hand and taught me how to hang out with Ruth. We were constantly at parties and at the beach. We were together all the time. My Bat Mitzvah trip was to festivals around the world.” (Shavvim.co.il)

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On October 7, Ruth and Erick were at the Supernova festival. They had been there for several days, camping out with all Ruth’s equipment. Yamit had been there with them the previous day, but left that evening. Erick and Ruth enjoyed themselves so much that they decided to stay the night. Early the next morning, Yamit and her half-sister, Yaarit, realized what was happening in the south of the country, and they called Erick in a panic. At that time, Erick and Ruth were ok and trying to get out of the site of the festival. “Everything is ok, I’m with security,” Erick told his daughters.

But that would be the last time Yamit and Yaarit heard their father’s voice. A friend of Erick’s, who was also at Supernova, posted later on Facebook, telling the story of the last moments of Erick and Ruth’s lives:

“About eight in the morning, Erick Peretz calls me over with a smile and invites me to have coffee with him. Come on, have fun, brother. His daughter Ruth is in the car with her phone, on YouTube. I start making the coffee in the back of the van. While we’re drinking coffee and laughing, at around eight-thirty, suddenly people are shooting at us. Erick’s car got hit by a bullet. I scream at him, “Get out of here!” He gets into the car and drives off with Ruth, and I run in the opposite direction, leaving everything behind. My brother calls me, I run to him, get in the car. We drive but we get stuck. Erick also gets stuck in the car because everything is blocked. We get out of the car. Erick takes Ruth and runs into the forest. I also started running towards the forest. While running I see people falling like bowling pins. I never saw Erick and Ruth again.” (Ynet)

For almost two weeks, Erick and Ruth’s fate was unknown. Their car and Ruth’s wheelchair were found at the site of Supernova, but there was no sign of the father and daughter. Their family was desperately worried. Ruth could not eat solid food and relied on tubefeeding. She would not survive in captivity.

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Then, twelve days later, the burned and unrecognizable body of Erick Peretz was identified. In their grief, the family still had a sliver of hope that Ruth would be found alive. But Yamit was absolutely sure that her father and Ruth were together. She asked to delay the funeral of her father, to search the remains more carefully, to check if her little sister was with Erick. But the family didn’t agree to this, and Erick was buried.

Time went by, and a month later, Ruth still had not been found. It was impossible for her to still be alive after all this time. Yamit knew in her heart that Erick and Ruth were in that grave together. She said to Ynet: “I was a million percent sure that they were buried together. I had no doubt that they were together, from day one.”

In the end, Erick’s grave was opened and the contents were examined again. It turned out that Yamit was right. The remains were not only Erick’s, but Ruth’s as well. They had been burned and melted, twisted and entwined together. Yamit knew that her father would never have left her sister alone for even one second. If they were facing death, they would have faced it together.

The second funeral was for both father and daughter. The entire party scene grieved for these two beautiful, gentle souls, who wanted nothing in this world but to be together, camp out in nature and enjoy the music.

I don’t know what comes after death, but I hope Ruth and Erick are dancing and surfing. I hope they come to visit Yamit in her dreams, as she asked them to do at the funeral. I know that they are together, always, as they were in life.

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