The head of security at the Nova music festival received a warning from a friend in the army a week before October 7th that “something was going to happen on Sukkos.”

In an interview on Channel 14 News on Monday evening, Federman said: “A week before the party, I received a message from a guard at the party who was serving in the Gaza Division. In the message, he warned: “Elkanah, something is going to happen on Sukkos. ‘I’m letting you know, there are a lot of warnings. The situation in the Gaza border area is not great so I’m letting you know so you can prepare. It may happen but it may not.”

“I passed the message on [to the IDF]. They told me everything is fine. The IDF knows how to take care of what it needs to. There are always warnings, everything’s fine.”

When the massacre occurred at the party, Federman acted heroically, saving lives by evacuating injured victims to ambulances and even fighting the terrorists, killing 15 of them with an M16 an injured soldier gave him and later with a handgun he took from a murdered police officer. Eventually, he was shot in his thigh and he ran for his life while terrorists shot at him from all directions. He reached some bushes, where he hid for almost eight hours after applying a tourniquet to his wound with his belt to stem the bleeding. He was eventually rescued and evacuated to the hospital.

After he recovered somewhat, Federman called the guard from his hospital bed to clarify what exactly he heard would happen on Sukkos. I told him: ‘I wanted to talk to you about the message you sent me a week before the party. You spoke in code. Tell me exactly what they told you.'”

“He said: ‘Elkanah, they me that there was going to be an infiltration and they had a plan to take over the yishuvim. I couldn’t tell you that but that’s what happened.'”

Hear the message from the guard below:

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)