“We embarked on a mission from which we didn’t know if we would return”

The MDA Station in Tzohar is part of the Ofakim cluster. Its people have a special story about working under fire, fighting for the lives of the wounded, about friendship and brotherhood. MDA teams that were dispatched to emergency calls in the Gaza Envelope found that they were unable to immediately evacuate the casualties to hospitals as usual, because the roads were swarming with terrorists who shot at everyone who passed by. With great resourcefulness and out of a deep commitment to their patients, the MDA teams set up an improvised clinic inside a synagogue in the village of Naveh, brought the wounded there and treated their injuries, while maintaining constant contact with the MDA call center and working together to evacuate them.   

Menachem Blumenthal, a paramedic at the MDA Station in Tzohar, and Hananya Elmakais, a senior EMT, worked together on the night shift between Friday and Saturday. At 6:30 a.m., the barrage of missiles toward the Gaza Envelope began, and a few minutes later the two were called in to treat a seriously wounded man. Their shift was going to continue for a long time. “While treating the wounded man, we began to receive messages about terrorist infiltrations into nearby communities. We realized we couldn’t evacuate the wounded man to a hospital because there were terrorists on the roads around us, and we decided to enter the nearby Moshav Naveh,” recalls Menachem. “We reached the moshav’s synagogue, brought in the wounded man who was with us in the intensive care vehicle, and decided to convert the synagogue into an improvised field hospital and prepare to receive additional casualties, if there would be any.”

An MDA mobile intensive care team from Mount Hebron also used the synagogue in Naveh as a treatment site. The paramedic Haim Rubin recalls: “On Simchat Torah, the intensive care team included members from Mount Hebron, Negev 72. In the morning, we received a call that there were missiles and that a reinforcement was needed in Be’er Sheva. Avia Goldstein, Ariel Hacohen and I got ready and drove off. We got to Be’er Sheva and were sent in the direction of the Gaza Envelope.” On the way, at Revivim Junction, they stopped to treat civilians who had been seriously wounded by gunfire and were in an unstable condition. “We carried out life-saving operations, stopped bleeding, applied tourniquets and evacuated them to an MDA helicopter which took them to the hospital,” says Haim.

At Tze’elim Junction as well, the team treated people who were seriously wounded, carried out life-saving operations and brought them to a helicopter, this time belonging to Unit 669. EMT Ariel Hacohen recalls: “We headed back out in the direction of Be’er Sheva, and at Tze’elim Junction we heard Menachem Blumenthal, who had completed a 24-hour shift at Tzohar, asking for a senior medic to join him in Naveh. I calculated and realized that we were the closest. I got in touch and the call center confirmed that we would go to Naveh. Hananya Elmakais directed us and asked us to drive ‘through the fields’ and not on Route 232, because the road was full of gangs of terrorists, and they were hunting down and murdering dozens of civilians there. We arrived at the synagogue in Naveh, where everything was arranged for the holiday. Menachem and I moved all the benches and set up a treatment site with signs directing people to treatment areas for light, moderate and serious injuries. In the center, we arranged tables with medical equipment. Cars with wounded people flowed there.”

The MDA personnel realized that the treatment site they had set up in the synagogue might be the only medical facility in the area, so they prepared to receive the wounded. They contacted the local residents and asked anyone with medical training to come to the synagogue; they contacted the clinic in the settlement and asked for all their medical equipment; they asked a pre-military preparatory school in the settlement for all the stretchers in their possession. In this way, they set up an improvised clinic inside the synagogue together with the residents. In order to protect the wounded, Menachem asked the local emergency squad to provide security. He also contacted the MDA call center and asked them to direct ambulances carrying wounded to the synagogue treatment site and to find evacuation solutions. Hananya recalls: “Menachem told us, ‘I know I’m asking for a difficult thing, but I need you to go meet the ambulances and bring the wounded here.’”

Several other MDA personnel arrived at the treatment site in Naveh, including Akiva Shabbat, an MDA ambulance driver from Shlomit. Akiva’s house had been hit directly by a rocket in the first barrage. Nevertheless, he rescued wounded people from nearby moshavim, bringing them to the clinic by MDA ambulance. “In the very first barrage, my house was hit directly and caused a lot of destruction. I made sure that my entire family, who was with me in the safe room, wasn’t hurt, and I immediately understood that this was an unusual and significant incident. As a member of my community’s emergency squad, I put on my vest, took my weapon and went out to fight. In addition to shooting and neutralizing terrorists, I provided initial medical treatment to the wounded scattered in the area, and after coordinating with Menachem and Hananya, I evacuated the wounded to the synagogue and continued fighting.”

“At around 9:30 a.m., we received a report from Akiva Shabbat that he had reached people who were wounded by terrorists in Moshav Pri Gan, where very heavy fighting was taking place, and that he was taking them to our synagogue, which had become a field hospital. We provided medical treatment to the wounded who were brought to us, and at the same time we tried to coordinate with the MDA call center and the army to land a helicopter nearby to evacuate the wounded. We used all the medical equipment we had to save the wounded. Unfortunately, there was a very chilling moment when one of the victims didn’t survive his wounds, and those present at the synagogue said Kaddish for him,” Menachem recalls.

On one occasion, MDA personnel were called to a seriously wounded man in Moshav Bnei Netzarim. The two paramedics agreed that Haim Rubin and the MDA team from Mount Hebron would go rescue him. They drove under fire, arrived at the clinic in Bnei Netzarim, where they found the man lying on a bed, muttering and bleeding, his limbs having been blown off. Haim tried to have the wounded man evacuated by helicopter, but was told that it was impossible to land there at the moment. So they brought him to the emergency treatment site at the synagogue in Naveh. “We treated him with plasma, and at the same time several other wounded people came to us. He was very badly wounded. His condition was complicated and unstable. I knew that if I gave him too much pain medication he would collapse, and on the other hand if I anesthetized him, he would probably die. He was one of the most challenging cases I treated in all my years as a paramedic,” Haim recalls. In the end, an MDA helicopter managed to land in the vicinity and the MDA team in Naveh took the wounded in ambulances to the helicopter.

Several women in labor also came to the synagogue and the MDA team treated them and evacuated them to the delivery room.

“That day was a never-ending nightmare. We kept hearing about more and more wounded whose conditions were unknown and who were on their way to us. We used all the supplies we had until we no longer had anything left and we had to improvise. There was a great deal of commitment and also kindness. We treated many victims. We were under siege. I think we made good decisions – the decision to open a treatment site was very good. When they released us on Sunday afternoon, together with the other residents in the area, we examined scenarios and decided on designated places in the Mount Hebron settlements that could also serve as treatment sites if necessary. We opened WhatsApp groups for medical teams in each community, briefed everyone about a meeting place, and prepared a box of medical supplies in each of the places slated to become a treatment site. We regularly train together with the army, and we understood that the treatment site we set up in Naveh saved lives. The decision to stay put and not disperse saved lives. The synagogue was not fortified against missiles. There was a constant sense of danger and we avoided open places. At some point, we also ran out of gas. The residents of Naveh arranged fuel for us from the tractors.”

Haim talks about the sense of danger that surrounded them. “I was sure I was going to die. I felt this way when we were at Naveh, and thoughts kept popping up that at some point the terrorists would reach me. I thought about writing something, but finally I decided to call my wife, talk to her, see that she was okay. You have to understand, I’m a paramedic in southern Mount Hebron; I’ve been to almost all the attacks in the area and I’m trained to treat victims under fire, but the feeling here was different. I felt helpless. It was endless. I’ve been in the profession for years, I’ve handled a lot of incidents; you get to the scene, there’s a few shot people there, a vehicle and that’s it; here there was uncertainty and a huge number of casualties that kept coming. I remember the dispatcher reporting more terrorists and more wounded on the radio, and then sighing and saying to herself, ‘It’s not over…’ She didn’t notice that the radio was still on. It was hard. There is no other way to define it.

When we were there, there was a sense that everyone was working together for one purpose. The residents of Naveh, the citizens, it was an amazing feeling. The MDA helicopter teams were what gave me strength – we brought them wounded people again and again, they were our oxygen and everything concentrated on them in the end. All the people who were there were heroes, but in my opinion, the MDA helicopters were critical, because Unit 669’s military helicopters were not always available. The MDA helicopter team did crazy things to succeed in reaching us. They landed almost on us. I don’t think I can express the feeling; they are the ones who changed the situation most of all,” Haim summaries.

A few weeks later, Menachem and Akiva were privileged to visit two of the wounded they treated that day, Boaz Biran and Michael Gottesman. Gottesman said: “In the first moments after the injury and the initial evacuation, I didn’t understand where I was. I didn’t realize I was in a synagogue. I saw Menahem who began to treat me and I said to myself, ‘God sent me an angel to take care of me.’” Boaz Biran was wounded by gunfire and treated at the improvised hospital. “I remember that from the moment I was shot in the chest and hand, and until I got to the synagogue, I fought for every breath. I remember lying on my side as soon as they took me into the synagogue on a stretcher. I didn’t really understand where I was, but I saw the MDA teams and felt relieved. I understood that now I would receive medical treatment and my condition would stabilize. I was taken to a helicopter that brought me to the hospital in stable condition. And it was only thanks to you. Thank you so much for saving my life,” Boaz says with great emotion.

MDA personnel faced horrific situations on October 7, and it’s important for Ariel Hacohen that his friends’ inspiring accomplishments be acknowledged. “Menachem [Blumenthal] was amazing. He managed a team of medical personnel and all the patients admirably. In addition, he is a resident of the area, from Kibbutz Sa’ad. Many of his friends were among those he treated, and he did so with great professionalism. I was proud to be with him and work alongside him. I admired his abilities. Hananya and Akiva carried out a rescue operation to rescue the wounded from Pri Gan. I’m proud to have worked with them. In my view, we did what was expected of us as a medical team. With God’s help, we will emerge from this, grow and be strengthened.”