Meet the volunteer medics selflessly saving Israeli lives
'We all have our jobs, and in the middle of the day if a call arises, you go and you go and respond to the call. You take time off of work and you do what's needed,' says a volunteer with the United Hatzalah organization.
In the southern Israeli city of Kiryat Gat, an army of volunteer paramedics has been deployed in response to the horrific attack carried out by Hamas terrorists on October 7.
One volunteer told Rebel News reporter Avi Yemini that there are 7,000 volunteer paramedics working with the group called United Hatzalah. “We all have our jobs, and in the middle of the day if a call arises, you go and you go and respond to the call. You take time off of work and you do what's needed,” she says.
As Yemini pointed out, he's seen many Orthodox Jews volunteering — something that isn't as common in the Israeli Defense Forces. “Right now, I think you're seeing more of a concentration of the Orthodox Jews because a lot of volunteers have been drafted all over the country,” the Hatzalah volunteer explains.
Giving Rebel News a tour of the area, the Hatzalah volunteers said they had recently delivered shipments of food, water, clothing and other supplies to those who were displaced from communities like Sderot, near the Gaza border.
“And for soldiers, who were brought so quickly to their bases that they didn't have time to prepare,” adds another United Hatzalah member.
Moments later, the group, along with our Rebel News team was rushed into a portable bomb shelter. While inside, they explain how they've learned to differentiate the various booms; rockets landing, rockets being intercepted by the Iron Dome, planes going overhead.
WATCH: Avi Yemini continues to cover the war in Israel and how citizens across the country are reacting to the events of October 7.
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After being given the all clear, the United Hatzalah volunteers then wait to hear if they're needed to respond to any injuries from the rocket attack launched from within Gaza.
With the most recent attack dealt with, the Hatzalah volunteer tells Rebel News about the indiscriminate slaughter carried out by Hamas earlier in October:
When they came, they didn't care about Jews, Arab, (Thai) — you're here in Israel, they just attacked everyone. Without differentiation. They were just here to murder and massacre.
The doctor that was shot was an Arab, the Hatzalah volunteer in Be'eri that was killed was also a volunteer from up north who was working at the party as a security guard. They didn't care.
Here in Hatzalah, we all volunteer together, and we don't differentiate between religion or race and Hamas, they just killed anyone who was in their way. They didn't care and it's horrific and heart-wrenching.
An American Hatzalah volunteer who had just moved to Israel told Rebel News how he was a medic back in Maryland before moving. To the people around the world who have no sympathy for Israel's cause, he says he doesn't want anyone to suffer.
“It's horrible to hear of Palestinians suffering as well, but at the end of the day the people who are solely to blame for that is Hamas,” he says. “When they choose to put their munitions around civilians, when they choose to implant themselves in the neighbourhoods that civilians live in. There is nothing else that a nation can do.”
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