Fyra ur gisslan fritagna vid stor insats på Gazaremsan

On 7 October 2023, the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas initiated a surprise attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip. As part of the attack, 364 civilians were killed and many more wounded by Hamas at the Supernova Sukkot Gathering, an open-air music festival during the Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret near kibbutz Re'im. At least 40 hostages were also taken. This mass killing had the largest number of casualties out of a number of massacres targeting Israeli civilians in villages adjacent to the Gaza Strip, that occurred as part of the 7 October attack, alongside those at the moshavim of Netiv HaAsara, Be'eri, Kfar Aza, Nir Oz and Holit. At 6:30 a.m.around sunrise, rockets were noticed in the sky. Around 7:00 a.m., a siren warned of an incoming rocket attack, prompting festivalgoers to flee. Subsequently, armed militants, dressed in military attire and using motorcycles, trucks and powered paragliders, surrounded the festival grounds and indiscriminately fired on individuals attempting to escape. Attendees seeking refuge in nearby locations, such as bomb shelters, bushes, and orchards, were killed while in hiding. Those who reached the road and parking were trapped in a traffic jam as militants fired at vehicles. The militants executed some wounded individuals at point-blank range as they crouched on the ground. The details of the whereabouts and condition of the hostages are not publicly known. The massacre at the festival was the largest terror attack in Israel's history, and the worst Israeli civilian massacre ever.

On 7 October 2023, 25-year-old Israeli woman Noa Argamani (Hebrew: נועה ארגמני) was abducted by Hamas during the Re'im music festival massacre, part of the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. In one of the first Hamas videos released of the massacre, she was seen being abducted by a motorcycle as she yelled, "Don't kill me!" Her arms are outstretched toward her boyfriend Avinatan Or, who was also being kidnapped. The footage of her kidnapping became a symbol of the hostage crisis and led to Argamani being described as "the face of the Nova music festival hostages". Despite other hostages being released during a ceasefire in November 2023, Argamani remained captive. On 8 June 2024, she was reported to have been rescued by the Israel Defence Forces during an operation in Gaza.