They Ran Into a Bomb Shelter for Safety. Instead, They Were Slaughtered.

Yossi Landau, the southern region commander for ZAKA, a search-and-rescue organization, entered one bomb shelter on Route 232. Inside, he said, he found about 20 burned bodies fused together, adding, “It was difficult to separate them.”

Ms. Abud; her boyfriend, Eliya Cohen, 26; her nephew Amit Ben Avida, 19; and his girlfriend, Karin Schwartzman, 20, left the rave together after the rocket fire began.

Mr. Cohen’s aunt, traveling in a different car, called from farther up the road to say her vehicle had been shot at. Assuming the gunshots were coming from Gaza, Ms. Abud and her companions stopped to take refuge in the shelter with the bird.

“We were the first in,” she said. “Then more and more people came inside.”

Agam Yosefzon, 20; her boyfriend, Itamar Shapira, 22; and three of their friends, all from Misgav in the Galilee, arrived at the shelter around 7:20 a.m. At first, Ms. Yosefzon said, people milled about between incoming rocket alerts. “We were in a good mood,” she said. “We laughed and connected a bit.”

Aner Shapira, 22, an off-duty soldier from Jerusalem, soon arrived with three friends and the news that Hamas had infiltrated the border area. He reassured everyone that there was a large army base nearby, and that they should remain calm, unaware that base would also fall.