The Nova music festival, where more than 350 people were murdered on Oct. 7, 2023, has quickly become one of the most visited tourist destinations in Israel.
More than 200,000 people per month visited the site, at Kibbutz Reim near the Gaza border, on average over the last six months, according to Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael–Jewish National Fund. If sustained, that pace would put Nova on track to draw more visitors than the Dead Sea or Tel Aviv’s Anu Museum, which focuses on the Jewish diaspora, each year.
Visitors to the site have included foreign dignitaries and celebrities as well as tourists from both inside and outside Israel who are seeking a personal connection to the site of the single largest massacre of Hamas’ attack.
KKL-JNF says it spent more than $1 million on expanding a parking lot, building bathrooms and adding memorial signage to benefit the visitors. The site features rows of the victims’ photos attached to posts in the field where the festival took place.
“This place is not just a memory of what was — it is a living testament to the resilience, unity, and sorrow of Israeli society as a whole,” Ifat Ovadia-Luski, KKL-JNF’s chairwoman, said in a statement announcing the tourism numbers.
Those seeking connection need not make the trip to Reim, located about 60 miles south of Tel Aviv: An exhibit recreating the massacre at the festival, featuring real items left behind there, opened in Israel and has since been staged in New York, Los Angeles, Miami and more.
Other sites ravaged during the Oct. 7 attack, which left about 12,000 people dead and more than 250 taken hostage, initially drew busloads of visitors as Israel sought to ensure that the horrors of the attack were understood. But they have receded as the communities that were attacked have increasingly turned their attention to rebuilding, leaving Nova as the primary site to become an official tourist destination.
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