Boaz Shabo, a volunteer in MDA Yarkon region for the last 20 years, explains why he spent the last few days volunteering in MDA Sderot “helping others is my true therapy”. His wife Rachel z”l, and his three children were murdered when a terrorist entered their home in the settlement of Itamar, five years’ ago.
“I was on my way home from work” he recalls the events of that awful night. “I managed to speak to my wife Rachel about the shopping that had to be done for Shabbat, and at the army barrier, set up not far from our settlement, I heard about a terrorist who had taken shelter in a house in Itamar. I had a gut feeling that it was my house. It is a feeling that cannot be a mistake. When I arrived home, I saw that I was right, the house was surrounded by security forces, and heavy gunfire was taking place between them and the terrorist who was still in the house. My friends from MDA were standing around waiting to be able to go in and save the wounded. When I understood how bad the situation was I stood there and just prayed that someone would get out of there alive, so that I would have a reason to get up in the morning. Later on, I found out that two of my older children, Atara and Yariv, managed to escape through the front door while the terrorist burst in through the back door of the house and began firing at everyone. The three of us stood outside, waiting”.
After a very long time of tense and nervous waiting, the security forces succeeded in killing the terrorist, and started bringing out the wounded and the dead, Boaz’s family, from the house, which had become a blood bath. First they brought out Ashael, who was then 9 years’ old. He was badly wounded, and his leg was amputated, up to the knee. Then they brought out Aviah, then 14 years’ old, who was also badly injured. A helicopter transported them to hospital.
“Then we stood there and watched how they brought out the bodies, one by one. My wife, and the beloved mother of the children, Rachel, and Neriya (15), Zvi (12) and our youngest son who was only 5, Avishai. Then of course, came the funerals, the Shiva, and then we were left to survive and deal with the situation – children who had lost their mother and siblings, full of fear and suffering greatly from trauma, with a child who had a leg amputated, and of course with my own longings and private loss.
People asked me – how do you get up in the morning. The answer is – it is one’s own choice. I had a dilemma” he says “whether to continue to volunteer in MDA or not – but I decided to pick myself up and continue – to continue also meant in MDA. I discovered that giving of myself not for the sake of receiving something in return, is my true therapy. Whilst I was still feeding Ashael during his long convalescence in hospital, as soon as there was a call about the terrorist attack in Allenby, I went without hesitation or regret to the scene as a first responder. In the second Lebanese war I volunteered for three and a half weeks running in the MDA stations on the front line, who were where the Katyushas were falling.” With tears in his eyes, Boaz tell of the moment when he asked his children if they would mind him leaving the house to volunteer in MDA during the war “Go and help the people who helped us when we were wounded” said his daughter. Boaz continues and tells why he came to Sderot
“In the beginning I was approached to help man the ambulances reinforcing MDA Ashkelon. I told them that I only volunteer in the thick of the action, and so I came to MDA Sderot, and unfortunately I ended up treating several wounded people in the last few days. But my volunteer work also has an added value. Because I have gone through all that I have gone through, I can talk to them straight in the eye, not as a psychologist or a social worker, and not in theory. I am very pleased that I was there during the last few days, and helped people” says Boaz “and I hope that I will technically be able to go there again whenever possible.
I succeeded in the two goals that I set myself” says Boaz, with great satisfaction, “the first is that the children have received from me all the needs a mother and father can give them, I learnt to wash, clean and cook. The second, I have proved to terror and the terrorist, that in spite of all the pain and the difficult loss I have suffered, they have not managed to cut down my family. My two children, Yariv and Atara, have recently married, and 10 days’ ago my first granddaughter was born, and she is called Ori”.
An on his face is a wide smile of triumph and victory as he shows a picture of his first grandchild on his cell phone.
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