7 October 2023

Maya Regev · 21 years old

“I've been shot, Dad.”

Maya and her brother Itay had returned to Israel the night before, after a three-week holiday in Mexico with their mother. They borrowed the family car and went together to the Nova music festival, near Kibbutz Re'im.

When Hamas terrorists attacked the festival, Maya called her father Ilan. “I've been shot, Dad,” she told him, and repeated it several times. When he asked where she was, she said she did not know: “He is killing us, Dad.” Ilan begged her to send him her location and to find a place to hide. Maya told him she loved him, that they were in the car and could not get away. Her father told her he was on his way.

Ilan's phone recorded the call without his noticing. He discovered it only a few days later and decided to make it public. When CNN broadcast it, on 21 October 2023, Maya and Itay were among the roughly 210 hostages held in Gaza, and their mother Mirit had never listened to it.

Wounded in the leg, Maya had been taken to Gaza. She was released on 25 November 2023, during the truce. Itay came home on 29 November.