A SURVIVOR of the Hamas music festival attack has spoken out about the split-second decision that saved her life.

Natalie Sanandaji, 28, was visiting Israel for a friend’s wedding but found herself at the Tribe of Nova music festival on October 7 when the terror attack occurred.

Since the attack, more than 1,400 people have been killed in Israel, in addition to the 4,300 Palestinians in Gaza and 91 in the West Bank, according to The Associated Press.

Sanandaji is a self-described “American Jew born to Israeli and Iranian parents,” as she told Insider.

She had planned to attend the Nova festival – and specifically catch the sunrise set on October 7.

So she and her friends arrived at 1 am, danced for a few hours, and then decided to nap at the campsite on the festival grounds before the sunrise set.

Sanandaji and her friends were woken up by another woman at their campsite who alerted them to rockets flying overhead.

She said that other festival attendees were “fairly calm” despite the rockets being intercepted.

But when the rockets kept coming, Sanandaji and her friends were among the festivalgoers told to go straight to their vehicles.

The music was turned off and festival security directed everyone to take refuge in their cars.

Knowing that it might take longer than usual to get back to where she was staying, Sanandaji chose to run back to use the bathroom.

That decision was the first that may have saved her life.

“I went back to use the bathroom, and a couple of days ago I saw a video that surfaced of the terrorists coming to those exact bathrooms and just shooting at the bathroom stalls trying to kill anybody who might have been inside,” she told Insider.

“If I had been there moments later, that could have been me.”

LIFE-SAVING DECISION MAKING

Sanandaji and her friends got into their car and began driving down a dirt road, as directed by security.

But then they were told to go in a different direction.

That’s when they realized that there was something else going on that they weren’t privy to.

Still, Sanandaji said that “security did their best to get everyone out safely and many of them died in the process.”

But then, security told them to start running.

“For a second, we sat there and we didn’t understand why they would say something like that,” Sanandaji told Insider.

“To us, the fastest way to get out of here was by car.”

Once Sanandaji and her friends began to hear gunshots, they started running for their lives, along with hundreds of others.

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“One of the scariest things at that moment was running in a certain direction and thinking that you were running to safety and then seeing dozens of kids run in your direction and realizing that they were being shot at,” she said.

“Every decision you made either saved your life or got you killed, and you had no idea of knowing which choice was the right choice.”

Sanandaji and her friends came upon a group of kids hiding in a ditch as they were running.

They considered stopping to hide but ultimately passed out of fear that if a gunman found them, they’d be shot.

That split-second decision ultimately saved all of their lives.

“We later found out that the people who stayed in the ditch were killed,” Sanandaji said.

‘I JUST GOT VERY LUCKY’

Sanandaji and her friends ran for about four hours.

They encountered a police officer who walked with them and tried to guide them to safety.

Eventually, they stopped to hide in the shade of a tree.

They then saw a large white truck headed toward them and debated running once again.

But the truck driver turned out to be a man from the town of Patish, which is where Sanandaji and her friends were running toward.

“We just hopped in the back of his truck and he drove us to Patish, and as soon as he dropped us off, he turned around and went back to go save more kids,” Sanandaji said.

She eventually returned to the safety of her friend’s home.

“I just got very lucky,” she said.

‘CRIME VERSUS HUMANITY’

Meanwhile, as the conflict continues to escalate and more stories like Sanandaji’s come to light, Israel released harrowing unedited footage from the October 7 terror attack.

The footage was released by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

In the weeks since the attack, the IDF has been collecting clips that have been strung together into a 45-minute reel.

A group of select journalists were shown the footage on Monday.

At the live viewing, an IDF spokesperson said: “This is a crime against humanity. They killed babies, old people, sick people … we won’t allow the world to forget who we are fighting.”

The spokesperson said the footage was shown to the journalists to show why Israel is now at war.

He said: “We want people to understand what we are fighting for. 

“This is something else. Something has happened to Israel. This is a crime versus humanity. 

“This is good versus bad. Death versus life. These [terrorists] will do anything and it’s nothing to do with Islam.