‘Complete and Utter Horror’: Christiane Amanpour Left Stunned As Israeli Terror Victim Recounts Graphic Story of Survival

CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday interviewed Sahar Ben-Sela, an Israeli survivor of the devastating attack on the early morning desert rave, where at least 260 people were gunned down by Hamas. Other concertgoers were brutally raped and taken hostage by the Palestinian gunmen.

Ben-Sela, who was injured during the attack, recalled being pinned in a shelter with a large group of people and a Palestinian gunman who massacred many of those hiding with him.

He started by saying, “I want to make it clear. First things first. It was a peace festival and we and we did nothing to provoke them. We just was dancing and having fun.”

Ben-Sela recalled the joyous atmosphere at the concert and added, “We had a small camp next to us of Germans, people from Germany, just tourists who came all over the way from Berlin or wherever they came, and we made drinks together. We had a laugh, was just so much happiness.”

“What happened to you? Tell me how you got wounded?” Amanpour asked.

“Ahh, that’s a big story. And the first moment that we realized that there is missiles, I was really calm at first. And because it’s not the first time I’ve seen missiles,” Ben-Sela replied, adding:

I was fighting in Tzuk Eitan. And I’ve been serving the army and then then I start to watch the missiles and one of the producers of the festival just jumped the fence and screamed that the terrorists are coming on legs and legs just they coming on land and not just from missiles. And then the panic began. It was a big panic. Everybody was jumping on the fence, everybody around to their cars. And there was a lot of fire out there. Just even in the biggest, worst scene that we seen in movies. I can’t explain how much, how many bullets and missile were flying around us. Not the big missile, like RPG and everything. It was RPG all over. I was fighting in the war. Never seen so many RPG. Seriously.

“And how did you get shot? Sahar, how did you get shot?” Amanpour pressed.

“That’s part of the story. We tried to go to another place and they turned us around again. And then when we saw a policeman standing next to a shelter and a lot of cars and the policeman look at us say there is nowhere to run. They are all over the place. Get inside the shelter,” he said.

Ben-Sela then recounted what happened inside that shelter in harrowing detail:

I remember 30 or 40 people, but my friend says that was 60 living there, 50 or 60 people. And we got inside the shelter. It was something like two meters in all, like just a two-meter square. And we got inside and then the shooting started and the policeman tried to calm down. It’s not the terrorists, it’s the IDF, but the shooting was on us. I could see the shots. I can I can feel on the on the wall of the shelter, feel the bullets It’s not IDF. It’s not IDF.

“Sahar it sounds to me like you were directed to take shelter, but you were like a cornered animal in this shelter because that’s where,” Amanpour noted as Ben-Sela replied:

It wasn’t the shelter, it was animal slaughter. It’s like they take all the animals to one place and shoot them all, and then the policeman got shot, then run away, and he killed one of the terrorists, but got shot and run away. I found him in Soroka [hospital] alive, thank god, the policeman. A one second. So. Then they dropped the first grenade, dropped it inside. It was exploding in the entrance.

“I’m sorry, if it’s too much, don’t talk,” Amanpour offered as Ben-Sela held his face.

“I need to tell about this,” he replied, adding:

Just a second, please. Thank you. After the first grenade was something like 45 seconds is probably the second grenade. And hit the wall, it hit my head and float to the back of the row. The people, the people in the back row and it explode on them. And then was it something like a lot of smoke inside? And then my friend, girlfriend, start to choke. And she wanted to go out and just start to run away from the shelter. We tried to catch her. I remember I was in the second row of the people. I tried to catch her with my hand and I it was slipping and she tackle. I think she tackled the terrorists and he shot her dead from the zero, from zero.

Amanpour added, “point blank.”

“Point blank from point blank. And after he shot her dead, he then just got inside. I could never forget the face of him, was smiling at us, looks like the devil just looked at us. Point the gun, the machine gun in front the girl’s face and just started to spray everything around,” he continued, adding:

All the people, I was in the second row, all the people in the first door and the second row, shot dead. Then I just opened my eyes and opened my mouth and start to go down the wall because I understood that I got hit but didn’t know where yet because it was blood all over and screaming and from all the adrenaline. In my body. But I can’t really understand what happens. And I think his gun was broken. That’s why he stopped the shot. And there was a third grenade inside the building, but it didn’t explode. We found him on the floor. Say that we don’t want to touch it so it wouldn’t explode.

“You know what, Sahar? I’m just pleased that you made it out. What a complete and utter horror,” added a stunned Amanpour.

Watch the full clip above via CNN.