Chicago resident Liroy Alex, 28, is lucky to be alive.
Alex was vacationing in Israel and was at the Supernova music festival when Hamas terrorists paraglided over the Israel border from Gaza and descended on the concertgoers.
“I could hear loud bangs in the area and at first we were joking that they took care of fireworks for us,” Alex told DailyMail.com. “But then they stopped the music to tell us of a rocket attack, which is not unusual for the south of Israel.”
(Video: DailyMai.com)
Gunshots rang out, and Alex, who was attending the overnight festival with his friend, Eliad Shemesh, and Shemesh’s girlfriend, ran for the safety of their car as Hamas militants pursued.
“We got to our car and found our route to be empty, despite hundreds leaving at the same time,” Alex recalled. “We noticed in the distance a group of about 20 bikes zig-zagging across the road, holding guns on their shoulder.”
“At first we didn’t know what it was,” he explained. “The girl who was with us started freaking out but I told her to relax telling her nothing would happen.”
Though Alex and his friend called for police and ambulance assistance, it reportedly took 13 hours and a harrowing escape from the festival before they were rescued.
Alex was behind the wheel, frantically driving as fast as he could through the deadly chaos.
“As we slowed down, we saw another biker being hit,” he said. “That’s when I decided to turn around and they [the terrorists] started shooting at our car. That was when another roadblock suddenly appeared.”
Bullets riddled his car, shattering the windows and spraying bits of glass into Alex’s eyes.
“We had no idea what was going on. As we drove past we were shot at,” he said. “Everything exploded, the glass went everywhere.”
Alex took a bullet to the lower back and Shemesh’s girlfriend suffered a punctured lung from another as they dashed across nearby fields.
The trio eventually stopped at what appeared to be a construction site and attempted to call for emergency help.
“We tried to save the girl,” Alex said. “We didn’t know who was shooting at us because we didn’t understand the whole situation that was going on. We just saw two groups and thought it was Arabs living in the desert who decided to make a mess.”
“We called police, ambulances, friends – we sent out our location- but it took three hours before we realized nobody was coming,” he said.
As they waited for a rescue, Shemesh’s girlfriend died from her injuries.
Alex received word from friends on his phone of the scope of the savage Hamas attack.
“Over the phone, my friends told me that it was a war zone,” he said. “We could hear bombs and shooting everywhere. Our friends told us to try and find a way to survive this – good luck!”
Ultimately, soldiers discovered Alex and Shemesh some 13 hours after the incursion began.
Alex “spent most of the last week recovering in an Israel hospital and has undergone a number of operations for his serious injuries,” DailyMail.com reports. “Doctors handed him the bullets that ended up in his hip and back, while telling him he is lucky that he is still able to walk after they hit close to his spine.
“He is still also without the sight in his left eye and is unsure if it will ever recover completely.”
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Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
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