The subject of the haunting photograph of a young woman in a red shawl fleeing the attack at the Nova festival on Oct. 7 has come forth to share the story of how she survived while Hamas slaughtered her friends.

Vlada Patapov, a 25-year-old mother, told the Daily Mail that she went to the desert rave on a whim to accompany her friends, with their sleep interrupted when sirens flared at 6:30 a.m.

“I immediately heard shooting. It was loud and very close to us,” she said. “For a few seconds I didn’t know what was happening and then Matan just screamed that we had to run for the car.”

The panic kicked off a race for survival that forced the Ukrainian-born Patapov to dawn her now iconic red shawl and frantically flee amid gunfire before hopping into the back of a car and escaping the scene of a massacre.

While she and two of her friends were able to flee to safety, several other friends became some of the more than 360 people killed by Hamas terrorists at the festival.

Patapov, a wedding planner, went to the festival with friends Matan and Mai, and several others, to unwind for the holiday weekend.

Although she was worried about the rave’s location being so close to the Gaza border, she said she figured it would be safe, otherwise it wouldn’t have been held in the first place.

Her fears, however, came true when rocket fire from Gaza began bombarding Israel on the morning of Oct. 7.

Although Patapov and others assumed it was yet another wave of attacks that would be ultimately deflected by Israel’s Iron Dome Defense system, it quickly became apparent that the rockets were just the first wave of an all-out attack against the Jewish State.

Soon the evacuation began as Hamas terrorists descended on the festival grounds, with Patapov echoing claims that some of the gunmen disguised themselves as IDF soldiers to lure in victims.

“We thought it was an Israeli soldier and we would be OK, then a guy a few cars in front got out and the soldier, who I know now was a terrorist, shot him,” Patapov said of the trap set up along the evacuation route.

“We all crouched down low, and bullets started hitting the cars around us but, I don’t know how, we didn’t seem to be hit,” she told the Mail.

Escaping in Matan’s vehicle quickly became impossible as exits were cordoned off and the vehicle eventually became trapped in the desert field.

The trio then ran across the desert, where the footage of Patapov was taken as several people, including friends, were gunned down by Hamas.

In the chaos, Patapov and Mai were separated from Matan, with the two women breaking out into tears after they reached a forest where they could hide for cover.

‘We didn’t know what to do or where to go and all I could think of was Romi,” Patapov said of her child. “I kept seeing her face and said someone has to survive for her.”

The two women were eventually picked up by a man on the road who took them and five others out of the desert and drove them to safety at an army base in Tze’elim.

Patapov was later able to reconnect with Matan, who had reached another army base 20 minutes away.

Once she got home, Patapov said she gave her daughter “the biggest hug ever.”

Despite waking up every morning thankful she survived the ordeal, Patapov admitted she deals with survivors’ guilt from the terror attack that killed more than 1,200 Israelis.

“’I sometimes feel guilty that I survived, and that others didn’t make it and what happened to me only lasted maybe 18 hours but for many the pain is still going on and I think about the hostages still in Gaza. We must not forget them,” she said.