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‘Trauma profiteers’ – Nova families oppose Oct. 7 TV drama

Rotem Azar, whose brother was murdered at the festival, said the show turns her family’s nightmare into entertainment.

By World Israel News Staff

Family members of Israelis murdered at the Nova music festival blasted an Israeli television network over its plans to air a dramatized series about the Hamas-led massacres.

The series is scheduled to premiere on October 7, 2025 — the second anniversary of the deadliest day in Israeli history.

The TV drama, titled First Light, is set to air on Keshet 12, which describes it as a “thriller.”

Starring Rotem Sela, a former model widely considered Israel’s most popular actress, the series has already attracted international interest.

Paramount and other distributors are reportedly seeking rights to bring the series to global streaming platforms.

However, bereaved relatives say the decision to dramatize such recent trauma is insensitive and deeply offensive.

Nitzan Regev, whose sister Shai was murdered at the Nova music festival, blasted the producers in an interview with the Hebrew-language daily Ma’ariv.

“I can’t understand how this is the right time [for broadcasting the TV show] when the war is still raging,. There are still hostages, and soldiers are still being killed,” Regev said.

“There are so many survivors who can tell their stories from a first-person perspective,” she added. “There’s no need to make a television drama out of it and make money and commercialize this trauma.”

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Regev also voiced concern that fictionalizing the events could distort public memory of that day and fuel conspiracy theories that the reports on the massacres were overblown.

“Ordinary people” may believe that that the atrocities of October 7 were “exaggerated” to make better television and “secure higher ratings,” she added.

Rotem Azar, whose brother Guy was also murdered at the festival, echoed Regev’s sentiments.

“What bothers me the most is reading comments from people who are waiting to binge-watch the series. I feel like they’ve turned my biggest nightmare into a suspense drama that’s making millions,” Azar said.

“It’s extremely disturbing and disconnected to make a ‘dramatized series’ about a reality that’s still happening. It separates and distances the horrors of October 7 from our current reality, as if that day was a one-off event that already ended.”

Azar added that there are videos of the actual massacres that she still cannot erase from her memory, including footage recovered from her slain brother’s cellphone.