Candlelight vigil for victims of Hamas attack in Israel held in Manhattan
NEW YORK -- A candlelight vigil was held in Columbus Circle on Wednesday to remember the 1,400 people the Israel Defense Forces says were killed in the Hamas attack in Israel on Oct. 7.
It was organized by the group Pro-Israeli Democracy with the purpose to remember the victims and pray for the hostages.
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The organizers lit 1,400 candles for the victims.
They say they don't want to let New York or the world forget what happened to civilians in October and the people who are still detained.
One of the speakers was Natalie Sanandaji. She's a Long Island native who was in Israel at the Nova Music Festival when rockets and gunmen descended Oct. 7.
She described to CBS New York having to run for her life for hours in the open fields, not knowing what was happening, where to go or which direction the danger was coming from.
"Kids were running in every direction, trying to find safety. One of the most terrifying moments was probably running in a specific direction, thinking that you're running to safety, and then I see dozens of kids running in my direction, and I realize that they're being pursuing and they're being shot at by a terrorist and I now have to change directions. I now have to make a split-second decision. And people keep asking, like, how did you get out? I don't have the answer to how, you know. Every decision we made was a split-second decision that we knew would either save our lives or get us killed, but in the moment, we had no way of knowing which decision was the right one," Sanandaji said.
Sanandaji says sharing her story and telling her people her firsthand account of what happened has helped with the trauma in the weeks since.