RE'IM, Israel – As the war continues in Gaza, nearly 50 Israelis are still hostages, both living and dead, held by Hamas. One survivor of the Nova Music Festival on October 7th, 2023, tells CBN News that even though she's dealing with post-traumatic stress, she believes she's alive for a reason.

Two years after surviving her terrifying experience, Hadar Sharvit describes herself as a "happy person."

"I'm a teacher. I teach math," she told us. "I'm a homeroom teacher. I'm the head of all the classes of the ninth grade in the school that I'm working in. I'm a dancer. I love nature. I love my friends. And I love music. And the Nova Music Festival – everything just combined together."

We met with Sharvit in the same park where Hamas attacked the festival. 

Noting how close we were to the Gaza border, I asked he whether she felt it was safe to be there.

She replied, "I'm not afraid being here, and even though it's next to the border, I don't need to feel afraid to be here. And also right now, after what happened, I'm not afraid being here. Actually, I feel the opposite. I feel very secure."

Some 3,500 Israelis showed up for the rave concert, and Sharvit joined a group of her friends. Later, Hamas attacked, killing 378 people at the site and kidnapping another 44.  Miraculously, Hadar and her friends would make it out alive.

"And this time, we felt it's something special," she recalled, "And we all gathered to that – to that moment. We were like 15 friends. And actually, we won the statistics because we all came back home."

They took several cars, and Sharvit rode with her friend, Shalev.

He (Shalev) is really important in my story," she explained, "Because we survived everything from the beginning till the end, like hand in hand."

Early that Saturday morning, rockets started flying, and the event organizers told them to leave.

"I grew up in Ashdod (a nearby city), and lived during some (military) operations that we did, in Gaza," Sharvit said. "So I knew what is a normal rhythm of (Hamas) sending bombs and rockets from Gaza to (the area)."

She continued, " I immediately – I started to talk with my father. So he told me that there were a lot of things going on over here. And the terrorists just broke (through) the border, and they came into my area, and I was like, no, they're far away. Like, I never thought that I will meet them and they will be here."

Sharvit and her friend Shalev tried to escape in his car. After being stuck in traffic, she feared they would be hit by a rocket. So, they abandoned the car.

She remembered, "Shalev and I just went back to the festival area where the bar was, and the main stage, and the yellow toilets. We were there till 8:15 (a.m.)."

That is when reality set in.

"I just heard Kalashnikov gunshots," Sharvit recalled. "And a lot of people just running through, all (in) my direction – (Shalev was) holding my hand and was looking at me. Shalev just (was) telling me, 'Run as fast as you can.' And then I realized, okay, they are here. It's a terror attack."

According to the Israel Defense Forces, about 120 terrorists intended to target the Israeli city of Netivot. They took a wrong turn and ended up at the festival, where thousands of Israelis were celebrating.

"So then they saw all the traffic that we created. And they decided to change their mission, and to just – we were the new mission of the terrorists," she said.

As Sharvit and her friend tried to escape, they hid under one bush after another.  

"I saw people just getting shot and falling on the ground," she recalled. "And when you see it, you just don't realize it. You see what you see is true. This is terrifying. And and, and it's still in my mind. And in my dreams at night, so the first bush. We understand we're in a low position. We need to go to other place. So we moved to other bush, and then they – all the terrorists, all the group – just came in at one time, and we started running in open field, and Shalev's holding my hand."

Sharvit took us to the open field where they ran, dodging terrorists and bullets.

"And I'm just still on the phone with my dad. I was like, 'Dad I cannot run anymore. I can't run anymore I can't, I can't, I can't!'  And he was like, 'Run, run, run – don't worry, run!. Everything's will be okay.'"

We asked, "The terrorists – did they see you? Were they shooting at you?"

Sharvit asnwed, "Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I heard, Bullets whistling in my ear like – ssisisisiisis."

We then went to the orchard where Sharvit showed us a tree like the one where they hid.

"The group (was) just getting smaller and smaller. And then we just saw an orchard in front of us. It was like a computer game, like, God just put this orchard (there). And I was like, 'How did I not see it before?' And then we just get into the tree that we felt that can save us."

With fruit on the tree, the branches formed what she called a dome, where they sat for five hours.

Sharvit told us, "I heard people got murdered. Women got raped. Screaming people, and then silence. A lot of gunshots and RPGs and grenades and missiles and seriously, chaos. Hell."

During our interview, an explosion went off in the distance, and Sharvit said, "That's what I heard all the time. Boom, boom, boom."

She described, "There were walking terrorists, like, over here inside the orchard. We saw them. We heard them. They didn't see us. There were a lot of miracles inside this orchard -- a lot of miracles. It's funny because this tree is a citrus tree. And my name is in Hebrew is citrus – Hadar."

Finally, when the shooting eased up, they heard Israeli soldiers and left their hiding place.

"And then we went out to the orchard, like with the hands up – we said, 'Civilians, civilians, civilians –  don't shoot on us, don't shoot on us.' Because we surprised them. We came from the back. And then I saw everything I had heard all these hours. And then I realized that I don't need to be anymore closed with my emotions – that I can cry, that I can scream, that I can express my fear – and the trauma that I'm having right now," she said.

The soldiers let her call her dad and took her to the Okafim Police Station, where father and daughter were reunited.

"The hug that we gave to each other, I felt like, I well, I cannot explain the feeling," she recalled. "And then from that moment, the PTSD (trauma) war started. This is how I call it. The first war ended. The second war started."

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Sharvit believes she's now on a mission to share her story..

"I'm Jewish. I'm Israeli. This is the history. It's big, like, it's like a second Holocaust," she said.

She wants the world to know Israel is a peaceful place despite the enemy's desire to destroy it.

"I know it sounds funny because of all the wars that we're going through, but the people are peaceful, and we all want just peace in the world," she stated. "We are the only Jewish country in the world. So when you say, 'What is Zionism?' Zionism is just the right for the Jewish people to have a land for their own and to have a place for their own and country for their own."