A paramedic from Israel’s emergency medical response service Magen David Adom described how Hamas targets Israeli first responders and how dangerous it is to help the injured in a war with terrorists.
Aryeh Myers, who is a paramedic and international relations lead for Magen David Adom (MDA), told me about some of the measures Israeli medical teams have to take to protect themselves and their patients amidst constant attacks from Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorists. “There is GoPro video evidence taken by the Hamas terrorists themselves, of them shooting at ambulances and taking them out of commission, either with gunfire [or] with RPGs,” he said, in exclusive comments to PJ Media. You can also read his description of the tragic aftermath of a Hezbollah attack on a Druze village in my previous article.
The overwhelming majority of MDA employees are volunteers, Myers emphasized. “Over 30,000 volunteers in the organization, and they are the first to face the threats that we are coming under, whether that is rocket fire, whether that's terrorist attacks, and we are there, prepared,” he stated. “Whether [that’s] on a local community basis, whether it was a national organization of 200 stations [and] over 1500 ambulances across the country, prepared for what might happen, prepared for any escalation, and again, prepared also to provide blood to all of the hospitals in Israel and to provide blood for the IDF as well.”
While the ongoing Oct. 7 war is an unprecedented escalation, having begun with the worst day of slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, MDA has had to operate for years amidst terrorist attacks and threats. “So as an organization, we have existed since 1930, we actually predate the State of Israel by 18 years,” Myers said of MDA. “In 1950 a law was implemented that mandates Magen David Adom as the national organization … we've been at the forefront of emergency medical response for that whole time.” The Oct. 7 atrocities presented “one of the most extreme” attacks “that we've had to deal with in all those years,” he added.
In the first 24 hours of the war, we treated and evacuated 1000 casualties, even whilst under fire from … terrorists. So this is definitely the most significant, and it is also the first time for many decades that, again, Magen David Adom health workers, paramedics, EMTs, ambulances, ambulance stations, [that] we came under direct, targeted attack by the terrorists, by the Hamas terrorists, they have plans to attack the ambulance stations.
They had intelligence on where the ambulances were kept. Several members of staff were killed on October 7 whilst providing life saving treatment to people, to other casualties, whilst driving the ambulances to the scene of the music festival, paramedics who were working in clinics that were then taken over by the terrorists … medical teams were directly targeted, [it’s] an absolute war crime to target medical teams anywhere in the world. And that's something that we face now, and that is something that obviously we need to prepare for. We need to think about [that], should there be any further escalations in the future as well.
According to Myers, “We have plans that were found on Hamas terrorists” regarding the ambulance station takeovers, and there’s video of the attacks. “Sixteen ambulances were destroyed again in the first 24 hours of this war, and even since then, in terror attacks that have occurred throughout the country.” Much more recently, only “a couple of months ago,” one “bulletproof ambulance” came under fire from a terrorist while responding to an emergency call. “And luckily, because it was bulletproof, even though the bullets hit the windscreen on the ambulance, the driver was kept safe,” Myers said.
Myers believes foreigners do not understand just how dangerous the situation is in Israel. “Again, just for an American audience to have this idea of bulletproof ambulances as a necessity in a civilian setting is something that's very difficult to comprehend, but that's the reality of the situation.” MDA works to protect both their patients and teams “from something as simple as just a medical call to as complex an event as October 7 and everything that has been going on since then,” including the constant threat of escalation, including after last week’s deadly attack on the Druze village in Northern Israel.
The terrorist attacks on medical teams necessitate extra gear for medical responders. “Every single ambulance, bulletproof or otherwise, has flak jackets and helmets on board, enough for the team to try to keep themselves as safe as possible,” Myers told me. “Obviously, we want to try and take as many precautions as is possible, but in certain cases, we have no choice but to head into the events, whatever they might be.”
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He referred to the recent jihadi killing of 12 Druze children. “That was very much the case on Saturday afternoon, with this attack in Majdal Shams, where, whilst the Magen David Adom teams were on scene treating the casualties, there was rocket fire into that same area again, and our paramedics and EMTs had to keep doing what they were doing … [and] evacuate them to [the] hospital as quickly as we possibly could.”
I asked Myers what he thinks will help minimize casualties in a war with terrorist enemies who glorify the murder of civilians, including children. “I think it's important to understand that there isn't a single Israeli who wants to be at war,” Myers answered. “Every Israeli wants to live in peace, and that's our aim.”
Unfortunately, the war cannot end until the jihadis are willing to back down. “The way to end this war is for Hamas to hand back the hostages and for Hezbollah to stop firing rockets at the civilian population in Israel,” Myers stated. But “whatever is happening Magen David Adom has to be there, and will be there to protect the people in Israel, to provide life-saving treatment that they need, to provide the blood supplies that we need for all the hospitals for the IDF, and to make sure that we can remain the safest [sic] as possible.”
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