Saturday. Early morning. A Jewish holiday. Shimon Alkobi, director of MDA’s Negev District, had been awake since 5:00 AM. When the first sirens sounded, he sensed that this was more than just another escalation. By 6:40 AM, he directed the station managers to switch from routine to emergency mode and check that all ambulances were manned. He donned his MDA uniform and set out toward the Beersheba MDA station. On the way, he called his contacts in the military and the emergency services to get a better picture of the unfolding situation.
Emergency calls started coming in, including reports of people who had sustained gunshot wounds in the Ofakim and Netivot areas. Ambulances from the Negev District set out to provide treatment. Over the internal radio system in his car, Shimon heard a chilling report from MDA paramedic Dani Shtarkman: his friend Peter Lasnik, an EMT and ambulance driver, was wounded after coming under gunfire while driving a Mobile Intensive Care Unit (MICU) near Ofakim. Shimon decided to drive toward Ofakim. At this point, nobody knew the extent of the atrocities taking place in the South of Israel and specifically in Ofakim, where terrorists had infiltrated and were carrying out a killing spree.
When Shimon arrived at the Ofakim MDA station, he saw that all of the station’s ambulances were already in use by the medical teams that had been called up to treat the wounded. Suddenly, a police car pulled up, and two police officers emerged, carrying another officer who had been shot and was bleeding badly.
Shimon, the regional director who was a paramedic by profession – like almost all of MDA’s managerial staff – laid the patient down and administered lifesaving medical treatment. “More and more wounded people began to arrive, as well as our own staff members. We began evacuating them. Four lightly wounded party-goers arrived from the music festival in Re’im,” Shimon recalls. “They told me that there were 30 more wounded people in Re’im. I remember thinking: ‘Wow, 30 wounded people? That’s a lot.’” More MDA teams arrived at the station, prepared to do whatever was needed. In recalling the events of that day, Shimon gives special mention to Sima, a volunteer driver from Yeruham, and Linoi Weitzman, who were there and gave critical assistance.
As part of regular preparations for emergencies such as earthquakes, MDA stations hold a full stock of emergency medical supplies. That’s one of the reasons MDA staff were able to easily set up a treatment center on site that day: they laid out the emergency supplies, set up treatment stations, opened up stretchers, divided the tasks between them, and at Shimon’s request, ensured that a further Mobile Mass Casualty Unit was sent from Beersheba. More and more casualties with varying degrees of injury – soldiers, members of the police, and citizens – arrived by ambulance and in private cars at the station. The MDA team treated them all with care. They stopped people’s bleeding, bandaged wounds, attached drips, and at times, gave more advanced treatment. Sadly, the police also brought the bodies of their colleagues and of civilians who had been killed, which they laid out respectfully in one area of the station. Every time an ambulance arrived, the wounded were triaged, then loaded into the ambulances and evacuated to the hospital in order of urgency.
“There was one patient who was taken out of the car he arrived in, a soldier, and I saw there was a tourniquet on his thigh. The thigh was swollen from the loss of blood. He was very pale but conscious. Usually, I didn’t intervene in the treatment as there was no need, but as it happened, I saw him come out of the car, and I told the team: ‘Put him straight in the ambulance and take him directly to the hospital.’ Later, I found out that I knew his father.”
During this time, ambulances and MICUs were sent continuously to Ofakim and the surrounding area to evacuate casualties, including armored ambulances sent from other MDA districts as backup. While this was happening, the regional director, who orchestrated the entire operation, started hearing about his own employees coming under terrorist fire: he heard about Aharon Haimoff, who went out to do his job and with whom the connection was lost; Avia Hetzroni, who was shot on Kibbutz Be’eri where other MDA staff were unable to reach him; and Amit Man, who stopped responding to calls in the afternoon. All three were murdered.
At a certain point, Itzik Buzokshvilli, the commander of the Segev Shalom Police Station, arrived at the Ofakim MDA station. At great personal risk, he brought his friend, who had been wounded by gunfire, the commander of the Rahat police station, J. R. Davidoff. “Unfortunately, it was already too late for the Rahat police commander,” Shimon tells us. “Since Bazuka was around, I asked him to identify the many bodies of police officers that we were holding at the time. He went between them one by one and told me their names. He knew all of them personally. It was a very difficult moment. I wrote the names down, and then we closed the body bags. It was heartbreaking.
“Suddenly, we received an urgent report: terrorists had been seen at the entrance to the Ofakim MDA station. The teams brought in the wounded and closed us inside the station. Bazuka went into a kneeling position, his weapon at the ready, and trained on the entrance to the station – ready to protect the MDA staff and the casualties; I stood beside him. After a short while, we were no longer under threat; Bazuka stood up and said to me: ‘Okay, I’m going.’ And he went. Thirty minutes later, we heard that he had been killed when he returned to the fighting. May his memory be a blessing. He was a hero,” Shimon recounts sadly. “The whole time, I was in touch with the mayor because many bodies piled up at our station. Police officers arrived at the station asking for body bags; I handed them over, and I asked for more to be sent to me from other stations. When I arrived at Ofakim cemetery on Saturday night, there were more than 70 bodies there waiting for burial.
“During this disaster, every one of our MDA staff gave all they could and conducted themselves,” Shimon says of his teams in the Negev District. “They demonstrated dedication and commitment. And during that time, their families were locked inside safe rooms. Their work was second nature to them – they jumped into action without giving it a second thought. Their readiness to tackle the situation head-on was very impressive. Everyone knew exactly what they were supposed to be doing; there was no need to give instructions more than once. Everyone was fully on board – even those who had no home to return to, those who were called up for IDF reserve duty, and those who received terrible news about colleagues who were murdered, injured, or kidnapped – everyone put in whatever they had to give to save lives and adjusted themselves to the conditions they found themselves in. As their manager, I deeply appreciate what they do,” Shimon concludes. 