It was a challenging day for Israel and the paramedics and EMTs of Magen David Adom as rocket fire from Gaza and sectarian violence in Israel took lives Wednesday.
Early in the day, a 21-year-old soldier was killed in southern Israel when the jeep he was driving in was struck by a guided anti-tank missile fired across the border by terrorists in Gaza. MDA paramedics and EMTs as well as IDF medics responded to the scene. Two other soldiers were injured, one of them seriously, and evacuated to the hospital by an MDA Mobile Intensive Care Unit ambulance.
Later in the day, a 5-year-old boy was killed when a rocket struck his apartment building in Sderot, a city in southern Israel that frequently finds itself targeted by Hamas rockets.
MDA paramedics and EMTs found the boy unresponsive and began performing CPR and continued to do so during his evacuation to the hospital. However, his injuries, which included shrapnel wounds to the head, were fatal. His mother and 7-year-old sister were also injured and were treated and evacuated to the hospital by MDA medics.
Other civilians were injured in separate rocket attacks on Petah Tikva, Ashkelon, Sderot, and other coastal plain communities. With improved rocket designs, however, Hamas terrorists were able to reach as far north as Nazareth during rocket strikes today. MDA treated five people for injuries in the Petah Tikva attacks alone.
But it was not only rockets from Gaza that injured Israelis. Sectarian violence broke out throughout the country and critically injured an Arab-Israeli in Bat Yam, a Jewish-Israeli in Akko, and a Palestinian worker in Jerusalem.
Magen David Adom paramedics and EMTs didn’t escape the violence as a Mobile Intensive Care Unit ambulance was attacked while treating a man injured in a riot in Lod. The vehicle was heavily damaged by rocks that were thrown at it, the third MDA ambulance damaged since riots and other violence began Monday, prompting swift condemnation by MDA officials.
“This type of violence is unacceptable and is not a protest,” said Uriel Goldberg, an MDA paramedic.
