Nova music festival survivor’s home destroyed by Iranian missile

Ottawa announced it is sending additional consular services to help Canadians in Israel and Iran fly home. Adrian Ghobrial reports.

Hila Fakliro survived the Nova Music Festival massacre in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. This past Sunday, an Iranian ballistic missile hit her apartment in Tel Aviv, reducing it to rubble.

Fakliro jokes that someone has been trying to repeatedly kill her - though her story is far from a laughing matter.

On Oct. 7, Fakliro was bartending at the Nova Music Festival, when Hamas attackers stormed the event, killing hundreds.

Fakliro recalls running through the dessert for hours on end unsure if she was far enough away from the terrorists who’d already killed and kidnapped many of her friends.

“I blacked out, I don’t remember what I saw, I remember what I heard. I heard ‘Allahu Akbar’ the screaming (of victims) and I remember hearing them (Hamas) laughing, so I decided not to look back,” she said. She kept running, looking straight ahead.

Fakliro arrived in Toronto about three weeks ago, to be a guest speaker at the Nova Exhibition, an installation that offers a space for reflection and healing following the tragic events of that day.

If the 27-year-old hadn’t been in Canada, there’s a good chance she would have been home when the missile hit her Tel Aviv apartment. “Many of my neighbours are seriously injured, their pets died there’s nothing left of my home” she shared.

The airspace in Israel is closed to commercial aircrafts. Fakliro’s scheduled flight from Toronto to Tel Aviv was cancelled last week. Yet, the 29-year-old still wants to go home.

“I know it sounds crazy. I don’t even have a home to go to, but I need to hug my mother.”

The powerful urge to return home is being felt by thousands caught in the crosshairs of the deadly, escalating war. CTV News has been speaking to multiple Canadians stuck in both Iran and Israel who say Canadian government officials have been of little help. Many have been left to traverse a warzone on their own, towards land border crossings, unsure if they’ll even be granted safe passage into a neighbouring nation.

• Canada facilitating commercial flights home for citizens fleeing Israel, Iran
• 51 Palestinians killed while waiting for aid trucks

Foreign Affairs Minister, Anita Anand shared an update Thursday saying in-part that “given the airspace is not open, once Canadians have crossed the border into neighbouring countries, we have consular services available for them.”

Fakliro realizes how fortunate she is to be in Canada, being here may have saved her life.

“I have a guardian angel. Someone put me here for a reason” she said. Though she struggles with the human toll and loss of life across the Middle East.

After surviving the Oct. 7attack, her apartment now destroyed, Fakliro is calling for peace for Palestinians, Iranians and Israelis. Like so many, she simply wants to go home and try to put the pieces of her life back together.