London mayor meets Oct 7 survivors at Nova exhibit after facing sharp criticism

London Mayor Sadiq Khan visited the Nova Festival Exhibition in London on Thursday, where he met survivors of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and called on the public to visit the exhibit to better understand the massacre.

The visit comes after organizers previously criticized Khan for declining several invitations to attend the exhibition, amid heightened anti-Jewish and anti-Israel tensions across the United Kingdom.

The exhibition recreates the Hamas assault on the Nova music festival in southern Israel, where terrorists murdered 364 people as part of the wider Oct. 7 attack that killed about 1,200 people.

Nova Festival Exhibition organizer Jo Woolfe told The Jewish News that Khan had originally declined multiple invitations to visit.

She recalled that the mayor's office eventually responded by offering dates after the exhibition had initially been scheduled to close.

"They probably said that because we were supposed to be closing on the fifth. I knew we were extending, but they didn't," Woolfe said.

Khan's office denied the claim, telling the outlet that it only proposed July dates after the exhibition's run had officially been extended.

During the visit, Khan met British-Israeli Oct. 7 survivor Sean Burns, describing the encounter as "inspiring." He also met Nova festival co-founder Ofir Amir, who was wounded during the Hamas attack.

Khan said Amir "wants us to remember his friends and those who were there at the festival as human beings."

"As time goes on, the concern is that we'll forget them, they'll be forgotten, and it's really important that they're not forgotten," Khan said, emphasizing that it was "worth reminding ourselves of the horrors of that awful day."

Khan compared the Nova massacre to the 2017 Manchester Arena terrorist bombing, in which an Islamist suicide bomber killed 22 people attending an Ariana Grande concert.

"When you look at the photographs of those who lost their lives, you'll see the diversity of ages – from kids as young as 19, their 20s, their 30s, and their 40s, even in their 50s, whose common theme was their love of trance music, their love of rave," Khan noted.

"And they left home, leaving their loved ones behind, expecting to see them the next day, never to return," he continued.

Khan warned against those seeking to deepen divisions between communities.

"There are too many people around the world trying to divide people, divide communities, and music, fun, congregation are the things we all share," Khan argued.

During the visit, Khan also met Avivit Abady Yablonka, the brother of Hanan Yablonka, who was murdered by Hamas terrorists while attempting to flee the Nova festival. Hanan's body was taken to Gaza.

He also met survivor May Hayat, who worked at the festival alongside her friend Liron Barda, who was murdered while trying to help other injured festivalgoers.

He urged Londoners to visit the exhibition, saying its message extends beyond politics or religion.

"It's about coming to see for yourself what happened on that day," Khan explained. "But if you're lucky, you get the chance to meet a survivor and that experience will touch you, I promise."