“On every rescue mission, I looked for my father among the wounded”

Itay Amar has been volunteering at MDA in Ashdod since he was 15 years old. His sister Shahar began volunteering a year before him and “infected” him with the MDA bug. Since then, he has enthusiastically participated in all the MDA courses and training programs for youth, and he is currently in the middle of a paramedics course. It’s a demanding program, at a very high level, requiring a huge commitment, seriousness and ability.

On the morning of October 7, Itay slept in his home in Ashdod, which is near the MDA Station. The night before, he had been engrossed in memorizing the material he had learned in the paramedics course. “When the sirens started, I inquired at the station what was going on,” Itay recalls, “and they said that the youth volunteers were not allowed to join the shifts, to keep them safe, and that they needed adult volunteers to staff the ambulances. During the sirens, I put on my uniform and ran to the Station. It’s a ten-minute walk, but this time I made the trip in five minutes,” he says with a smile. “I arrived at the Station before 7:00 a.m., among the first ones.” Itay remembers that the deputy manager, the paramedic Haim Levin, briefed those present on the situation, which was still unclear, and a few moments later they left in an ambulance on the way to the Gaza Envelope.

While they were driving, Itay wrote on the family’s WhatsApp group that he had been assigned to reinforce in the south, and learned that his father, Shai Amar, a fighter and commander in the special police unit, had also been sent to the south. At Kokhav Michael, the team joined paramedic Alisa Krant, and began treating the many wounded brought from the battle zones by bulletproof MDA ambulances. “The first wounded person we treated was a policeman who suffered from bullet wounds all over his body. Alisa performed a complex procedure on him and basically saved his life, and then we evacuated him to Barzilai Hospital.” The team was then sent to the scene of a rocket hit in the city of Ashkelon. “It was a horrific scene,” Itay says. “On our right we saw fire and smoke from a factory that had been hit, and on the left there was fire and smoke from vegetation that had been hit by a rocket. The whole road was shrouded in thick, black smoke. It was awful.”

Between one wounded person and another, in a real atmosphere of war, Itay texted from time to time with his father and updated him on his situation. When they returned to Kokhav Michael, they noticed many MDA forces deployed there. “The second time we arrived, there were already many ambulances from all over the country, a lot of MDA personnel. Dan Ben-Yishai, the logistics manager of our region, had already brought a lot of supplies and made sure that there is enough near each position.” The team treated and evacuated more and more wounded and was even sent to shooting scenes in Moshav Ge’a, Kibbutz Brur Hayil and other places.

At some point, they were sent to prepare to treat the wounded from Kibbutz Be’eri. They set up a place to receive the wounded and then Itay overheard a conversation among the paramedics that their friend, Amit Mann, may God avenge her blood, is under siege in Be’eri and treating the wounded there. “I heard the concern in their voices,” Itay recalls. “We returned to Ashdod. I stayed on for the night shift. My father stopped answering my texts.” Itay continued to treat victims and hoped for the best, but every time a wounded person was taken to the hospital, Itay looked for his father among the wounded who were brought to the emergency room. Only a week later did the bitter news arrive. “I understand that during those hours he was in the heart of danger. As I know my father, and from what I heard from acquaintances of his, he insisted on going to the front and fighting inside the kibbutzim in order to save lives. In retrospect, I found out that while I was treating the wounded, my father fought terrorists in various arenas, until he finally fell in the battle for Kibbutz Be’eri. I’m glad I still managed to write to him that I love him,” Itay says. “You can’t take it for granted, two men, you know…”

These days, Itay invests his energy and strength in successfully completing the paramedics course, and dreams of studying medicine while continuing to volunteer at MDA. “I know my father is proud of me for the lives I saved that cursed Saturday, and I’m the proudest in the world of him for those he saved,” Itay says. “I was very impressed by MDA’s response to the terrible events of that Saturday. The reinforcements that came from all over the country, the organization, the way everyone knew their job, the response was clear. I remember asking Alisa where we were going next and she said, ‘Wherever they tell us.’ Everyone was ready, alert, prepared. It was impressive and filled me with pride,” Itay concludes.