Between the Kassam and the Grad missiles – a glance at the people reinforcing the stations around the Gaza Strip
The heart expands at the sight of any MDA worker and volunteer who arrives from all over the country to reinforce the teams in the stations along the front line. In a telephone conversation with the Sderot station, which is under attack, we found Aluma Simon (27) from Jerusalem, a senior medic and ambulance driver who has been a volunteer in MDA for the past 13 years. In her day to day life, Aluma is a student of Nursing in Hadassah Ein Karem, who left behind clinical experience and work in the Emergency Room, worried family and friends and is today driving an ambulance in the Sderot station.
Aluma: “Despite the fact that I volunteered during the second Lebanese War in the Kiryat Shmona station, where I experienced many katyusha and missile attacks – but that was a defined war situation and my feelings were different. Here, what is most frightening is that it is not a defined war situation, despite the fact that we are on alert all the time for falling missiles.”
Standing next to her we find another ambulance driver, a volunteer from Jerusalem, Yuval Zarbiv (31) who has been a volunteer for about 5 years, a member of Kibbutz Kfar Etzion in Gush Etzion, married with three children, who works for his living in the Ministry of Defence.
Yuval: “In a state such as this one, consideration and caring overcomes rationality. I left a 6 year old son and 4 year old twins at home who are very frightened and worried about me. Also in my office the workers are concerned and helping me so that I can fully carry out my volunteering activity in the Sderot station”.
Holding this telephone interview is almost impossible, as we can hear all the time the wailing of the siren that precedes the “Red Code” alert in Sderot, and the volunteers immediately stop talking to us so that they can run from one site to another between the falling missiles, in order to treat those injured or suffering from fear.
In one of the rooms we find Elron Zavitani (21) a pupil in the “Ateret Cohanim” Yeshiva in the Old City of Jerusalem, a volunteer in MDA as a medic and an instructor. During the conversation he politely apologizes that he must cut it short as there is another alarm in the area.
The oldest in the crowd is Chaim Rosenberg (52) from Kibbutz Kfar Etzion, a senior medic and ambulance driver for the villages in the Gush Etzion area, married and father of 4, works in agriculture and has been an MDA volunteer for the past 28 years.
Chaim recounts that what surprises him the most is to see and experience the most difficult things and the crazy and misleading routine that continues in Sderot. Since early morning there have already been at least ten missile attacks, and the day is young…..” All the volunteers stress the fact that they have been very warmly received by the workers and volunteers in the area.
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