Israeli Man Shares 'Last Happy Moments' in Photos from Music Festival Just Before Hamas Attack (Exclusive)

Shye Weinstein wasn't supposed to go to the Nova Festival in Re'im, Israel, over the weekend. But at the last minute — while at a birthday party with his cousin and friends — he decided to buy a ticket.

"It was going to be my first ever festival," Weinstein, 26, recounts to PEOPLE. "I thought to myself 'Why not have that experience and be with my cousin and friends?' It'll be fun."

Weinstein's photographer instinct kicked in as he was heading out the door around midnight to leave for the event, so he grabbed his film camera. He planned to spend the night dancing and enjoying himself, but knew he may want to document joyful moments along the way.

At dawn – just as light started emerging through the sky – Weinstein began to snap photos. And he didn't stop, even as rockets wizzed over the surrounding farmland near the Gaza-Israel border. Every step of the way, even while running for his life to escape Hamas terrorists shooting at festival goers, the camera never left his hands.

"At one point while driving through a field, gunfire started to erupt around us," Weinstein recalls. "My cousin's girlfriend is screaming for us to get out of the car and to run. We all get under the car. We all run. We all get down in the field. We duck. We lay down. We look back. We see the cars. People can't get past."

Hamas terrorists ultimately killed at least 260 people at the festival, and an unknown number of attendees were taken hostage.

"The moment rockets happened, I knew something was bad and I said to myself 'I'm going to take photos,'" he adds. "I don't know why, but I figured the moment my cousin and I traded places and I wasn't driving I thought the most useful thing I can do is take photos."

Now, only a few days after the attack, Weinstein is sharing the images he took. On his Instagram page, he tells the story of the festival through the eyes of his camera.

"I was anticipating good vibes and fun, kind people; and that's exactly what we got," Weinstein captions a post of the photos he took. "But it's not all that we got, these are the photos from my time there, from beginning, to end.... If there are people missing in these images, please share."

One photo he captured shows his cousin sitting in a chair next to Ran Sheffer — a man the family befriended at the festival who Weinstein describes as being "cool as a cucumber." Sheffer was killed during the attack.

Another photo shows a group of friends huddled together, hugging. Their faces are filled with smiles.

Another blurry photo shows a man wearing glasses with his arms around a woman. As of now, Weinstein knows the man survived. The status of the woman remains unknown.

"I posted the photos of people having fun and loving each other and enjoying themselves and being human," he says. "One guy whose picture I took he only spoke about his brother and the jewelry he made. Now he's missing. No one knows where he is."

"Every time I get a message saying this person's alive I break down crying," he says.

His photos have received several comments on social media, including gratitude for sharing and words of support for those who were killed or are still missing. One commenter wrote, "And that's how you need to remember everyone, smiling and happy."

"I just want people to find peace. I want people to find their loved ones. If these people are dead I want their families and friends to see the last happy moments they lived," Weinstein says, "because I don't want to be the last one to see them."