Israeli medical workers were the first to respond to the Oct. 7 attack, arriving on the scene well before the IDF. They told The Washington Post their previously untold stories of how they were forced to fight terrorists in a desperate attempt to “save Israeli lives.”
United HatzalahIsrael’s all-volunteer medical unit, ISIS, received so many emergency calls beginning at 6 a.m. that day that they initially thought they had been hacked because the calls were from people “screaming, not talking.”
“On a normal day we get 2,000 calls,” said Eli Beer, 50, a volunteer services representative who was in charge of dispatching personnel for the Japan division. “On Oct. 7, we had 12,500. The command center was in chaos.”
Here is their story:
Isaac
Isaac, an active-duty IDF soldier and United Hatzalah volunteer, who did not want to give his real name, recalled being frantically walking 50 miles south when a pickup truck carrying 10 Hamas terrorists opened fire on his ambulance.
“I went white. I thought I was going to be killed before I could save one life.”
Isaac stepped on the gas and drove through the hail of bullets unscathed in the ambulance, then sped off to the Nova Festival after a frantic father pleaded with him to help his daughter.
On his way to the rave, Isaac is greeted by agents from the Shin Bet (Israeli FBI) who tell him not to go inside because terrorists outnumber IDF soldiers.
“He said, ‘You’re crazy. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. Don’t go.’
“I said, ‘I don’t care, we’re going to save the Jews.’
When Isaac, 36, arrived at the scene, he found a wasteland with bodies scattered everywhere. He yelled for anyone still alive to come out immediately or he would drive an ambulance elsewhere.
At that point, dozens of people came out of trash bins and other hiding places, telling Isaac that they hadn’t come out first because earlier, Hamas terrorists had posed as soldiers and killed everyone who had come out of their hiding places.
Isaac packed as many injured people as he could into a standing ambulance and rushed them to safety.
Hamas terrorists opened fire on the packed ambulance as Isaac was driving along Route 232 towards Ashkelon.
Armed, Isaac fired blindly out of the ambulance window as he weaved between burning cars and bodies along the highway.
Isaac believes he spent 16 hours driving up and down Route 232 that day, saving 100 people.
“Without United Hatzalah, another 1,000 people would have died.”
Eli
After watching live-streamed footage of Hamas atrocities, he quickly realized his country was “at war,” and he sent volunteers, including his wife and children, straight to Gaza’s border towns, which were swarming with terrorists.
“When the death toll reached 300, I said there was no need to count anymore. I told the volunteers to go at their own risk as they might not come back alive.”
“My wife called to say goodbye. She said, ‘I may never come back,'” Beer said.
Eli was faced with a series of difficult choices that fateful day.
The Israel Defense Forces had imposed a strict no-fly order that did not exempt police or medical personnel, but Eli had a patient who needed urgent transport to the hospital.
Fifty seriously wounded people were being treated at a field hospital set up by United Hatzalah in the forests of Sderot. They were bleeding badly and time was running out to get them to hospital, but the roads were too dangerous to drive on. Air travel was the only option, but Hamas missiles were raining down all over Israel.
Eli didn’t know where to turn: so many police officers had been killed in the south that no one was answering his phones and the IDF was busy responding to Hamas surprise attacks.
Eli made the crucial decision to ignore a no-fly order and send a medical helicopter to the scene, despite the risk of it being shot down by Hamas missiles or by Israeli allies.
“All the pilots were saying, ‘Why did we wait so long?’ We’re a brazen organization.
“We were afraid we would be shot down, but our pilot was a former IDF pilot and knew how to communicate with the military.
“I thought I would either be fired and charged the next day or I’d get the biggest reward of all: saving a life.”
After United Hatzalah launched its helicopter, police also sent in their own helicopter.
Ghitti
Gitti Beer, 49, said her final goodbyes to her husband Eli and, with the ambulance siren blaring, headed towards Kfar Aza at speeds of more than 100 miles per hour.
“I said goodbye because this is Israel, and these things happen in Israel,” she told The Post.
“When my grandparents were murdered in the Holocaust in 1942, no one did this for the Jewish people. But I’m going here to say goodbye to you all because I may not come back alive,” she said.
Eli insisted that Gity carry a gun.
“Part of a paramedic’s job is to put a bullet between the terrorist’s eyes. We have to eliminate the threat,” Eli said.
As they made their way down the mountain, they saw a car idling on the road with a body lying in the driver’s seat, fields on fire, and smoke floating everywhere.
“It was like a scene from ‘The Walking Dead,'” she said.
As Giti approached Kibbutz Kfar Aza, she could hear Hamas gunfire all around her.
“Once we got south, it was just a crazy house. It was madness. We were driving straight into the fire area and had no idea what was going on.”
There were so many injured that Gity was forced to do triage, knowing she couldn’t save everyone.
Giti found an IDF soldier who had tried to fight Hamas alone, with “half his skull missing” and part of his brain exposed. Giti noticed his wedding ring and wondered if he had a child at home. His chances of survival were slim, but Giti was determined to save him.
“We put him in the ambulance, intubated him and started treatment. He was in a very bad condition but he improved.”
A United Hatzalah helicopter arrived just in time and “saved his life.” The soldier is now recovering in a rehabilitation facility in Chicago.
“It was really nice to see that I actually helped someone,” she said.
Later, when Giti’s ambulance arrived at an IDF checkpoint, soldiers ordered everyone out of the vehicle and told them to take cover on the side of the road as Hamas terrorists opened fire.
She was proud of the work she did that dreadful day, but the horrific scenes she witnessed took a toll.
“When she came back she was like a ghost, like she’d just come out of the Holocaust,” her husband recalled.
Rabbi Chaim Sassi
Rabbi Chaim Sassi, 50, a volunteer medical worker, said he feared for his life after being shot while trying to save a police officer in Sderot.
Sassi tried to run to the officer but was shot in the face and leg, and the officer fell to the ground next to him and died.
“He was shot and I was trying to help him. I was shot. Everything is OK,” Sassi said, blood streaming from his face and stained on his motorcycle helmet, in a heartbreaking video he made for his family.
Sheikh Sasi hid beside the body for hours as Hamas terrorists fired at him from all sides.
The rabbi was then rescued by Israeli police officers who dragged him across the street under relentless sniper fire.
The rabbi was carried on a stretcher and somehow managed to survive. Of the 1,700 United Hatzalah volunteers who deployed that day, three were killed and 25 were wounded.
