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Israeli volunteer medics reveal never-before-told stories of battling Hamas, rushing to save lives on Oct. 7: ‘Like a scene out of the Walking Dead’
Israeli medics were the first responders to the Oct. 7 attacks, arriving at the scene of the carnage well before IDF troops. They recalled to The Post never-before-told stories of how they were forced to battle the terrorists in a desperate bid to “save Israeli lives.”
United Hatzalah, an Israeli all-volunteer medical force, received so many emergency calls starting at 6 am that day — from people “screaming, not talking” — that the organization first thought they were getting hacked.
“On a normal day, we have 2,000 calls,” said Eli Beer, 50, president of the volunteer service who was running dispatch that day at headquarters. “On October 7th we had 12,500. . . . The command center looked like chaos.”
Here are their stories:
Isaac
Isaac, an active duty IDF soldier and volunteer for United Hatzalah who did not wish to use his real name, recalled a pickup truck full of 10 Hamas terrorists firing at his ambulance as he feverishly made the 50 mile-trip south.
“I became white. I thought I would be killed before I could save one life.”
Isaac floored it and navigated his ambulance through the hail of bullets unscathed. He high-tailed it to the Nova festival after a frantic father begged him to save his daughter.
On his way to the rave, Isaac was greeted by a Shin Bet agent (Israel’s FBI) who told him not to go in because terrorists outnumbered the IDF troops inside.
“He said,’You’re crazy, you don’t know what you’re getting into, don’t go.’
“I said, ‘I don’t care, we’re going to save some Jewish people.'”
When Isaac, 36, arrived at the scene it was a wasteland. Dead bodies were everywhere. He screamed that if anybody was still alive they needed to come out now or he’d drive his ambulance somewhere else.
At that point dozens of people emerged from trash cans and other hiding spots. They told Isaac they didn’t emerge at first because earlier a Hamas terrorist had pretended to be a soldier and killed everyone who came out of their hiding place.
Isaac packed as many wounded people into his standing-room-only ambulance as he could and rushed them back to safety.
Hamas terrorists opened fire on Isaac’s packed ambulance as he drove along Road 232 toward Ashkelon.
Isaac, who was armed, fired blindly out of his ambulance window as he weaved around flaming cars and corpses along the highway.
Isaac believes he saved 100 people that day, as he drove up and down Road 232 for 16 hours.
“If United Hatzalah wasn’t there you would have had another 1,000 people dead.”
Eli
As he watched livestream footage of Hamas atrocities he quickly realized his country was “at war.” He dispatched volunteers — including his own wife and kids — straight to the Gaza border towns even as they were teeming with terrorists.
“When the deaths reached 300, I said I don’t think we should count anymore. I told my volunteers go at your own risk because you might not come back alive.”
“My wife called me to say goodbye. She said ‘I may not come back,'” Beer said.
Eli had to make a series of difficult choices that fateful day.
The IDF had issued a no-fly order so strict even the police and medical agencies were not exempt. But Eli had patients who desperately needed to be taken to the hospital.
Fifty severely wounded people were being treated in a field hospital United Hatzalah set up in the woods of Sderot. They were losing so much blood that time was running out to get them to a hospital, but the roads were too dangerous to drive on. Air travel was the only way, but Hamas missiles were still raining down all over Israel.
Eli didn’t know where to turn, so many police were killed in the south that no one was answering the phones, and the IDF was scrambling to respond to Hamas’ surprise attack.
Eli made the pivotal decision to defy the no-fly order, and dispatched medical helicopters to the field despite the risk that they could be downed by Hamas missiles or Israeli friendly fire.
“All the pilots were like, ‘Why did you wait so long?’ We’re a chutzpah organization.
“We were afraid they were gonna shoot us down, but our pilots were ex-IDF who knew how to communicate with the army.
“I thought either I was going to get fired the next day and be prosecuted, or I would get my biggest reward — which was saving lives.”
After United Hatzalah launched their helicopters, police deployed choppers of their own.
Gitty
Gitty Beer, 49, said her final goodbyes to her husband Eli, turned on the sirens on her ambulette and floored it at over 100 mph to get to Kfar Aza.
“We said our goodbyes because this is Israel, and in Israel, these things happen,” she told The Post.
“No one did this for the Jews in 1942 when my grandparents were all murdered in the Holocaust, but I’m going in and I’m saying goodbye to you because I may not come back alive,” she said.
Eli insisted Gitty take a gun.
On their way down there were cars idling in the roadway, dead bodies in the driver’s seats. Fields were on fire and smoke was everywhere.
“It was like a scene out of the ‘Walking Dead,” she said.
As Gitty approached kibbutz Kfar Aza she could hear Hamas gunshots all around.
“Once we got down south it was just a loony house. Insane. We were driving straight into the fire zone, we had no idea what was going on.”
There were so many wounded that that Gitty was forced to do triage. She knew she couldn’t save everyone.
Gitty found a man — an IDF soldier who had tried to fight Hamas on his own — who had “half his skull missing” with part of his brain visible. Gitty noticed his wedding band and thought he might have children at home. She and Dr. Ariel Lifshitz decided to try to save him despite his low chance of survival.
“We took him into the ambulance and intubated him, started treating him, he was in a really bad state but he improved.”
A United Hatzalah helicopter arrived in the nick of time, and “his life was saved.” The soldier is now recovering in a rehab facility in Chicago.
“It’s really nice to see you actually helped someone,” she said.
Later, when Gitty’s ambulance reached 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 fired at them.
Though she was proud of the work she did that terrible day, the horrifying scenes she witnessed have taken a toll.
“When she came back she looked like she just got out of the Holocaust, was like a ghost,” her husband recalled.
Rabbi Haim Sassi
Rabbi Haim Sassi, 50, a volunteer medic, thought he was going to die after he was shot trying to save a police officer in Sderot.
Sassi was rushing to the officer when he was hit in the face and leg. The cop died on the ground beside him.
“He got hit by a bullet and I was on my way to save him. I got hit by a bullet. Everything is okay,” Sassi said as blood drained from his face and stained his motorcycle helmet in a heartbreaking video he made for his family.
Rabbi Sassi took cover next to the body for hours as Hamas terrorists fired at him from all directions.
The rabbi was later rescued by Israeli police officers, who dragged him across the street under the cover of unrelenting sniper fire.
The rabbi was laid on a stretcher and managed to survive. Of the 1,700 United Hatzalah volunteers who responded that day, three were killed and 25 were injured.
