Through weeks of riots, rockets and civil unrest, United Hatzalah’s medical emergency service has emerged as a beacon of coexistence. The organization relies on a nationwide network made up of thousands of volunteer EMTs, paramedics and doctors to provide lifesaving first response care.
“We’ve had almost double the amount of calls over the last month daily than we have previously,” Raphael Poch, international media spokesperson for United Hatzalah, told The Media Line. “Usually, we have about 1,800 calls in a day … since the end of Ramadan when the violence was getting really heavy, the calls spiked to about 3,000.”
When they receive an emergency alert from the organization’s national dispatch center, volunteer first responders drop everything and rush to help save lives. In urban areas, the average response time is 90 seconds thanks to a fleet of ambucycles that can easily weave in and out of traffic.