Zvi Reider is a devoted MDA volunteer who lives on Kibbutz Sa’ad. “On that cursed Shabbat – that’s how I refer to it – I awoke to the sounds of barrages of rockets. At that point, there still weren’t any reports on the news about what was happening, but I understood that something unusual was occurring. I have an observation deck on my roof, and when I looked with my binoculars in the direction of Gaza, I saw the terrorists’ trucks penetrating the fence and entering Israel. I immediately alerted the kibbutz’s emergency response team, of which I’m also a member, but because I’m an MDA medic and the kibbutz ambulance driver, I decided to focus on saving lives.”
Zvi prepared to treat the wounded. At 7 AM, injured people began to arrive at the gate of the kibbutz, mostly survivors of the atrocities at the Nova festival in neighboring Re’im who had managed to escape. Zvi went over to them, assessed the severity of their wounds, provided life-saving emergency treatment, and evacuated them to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba. “I updated the MDA dispatch center and even told them to ask the hospital to prepare for the arrival of patients with gunshot wounds. In hindsight, I understood that the entire road I’d driven on was full of terrorists. It was only once I got to the hospital that I realized I hadn’t been in contact with my son Dor, who lives on Kibbutz Be’eri and has a child with special needs. At 11 AM he wrote to us that he couldn’t talk, that there was noise outside. An hour later, his brother called him, and a terrorist answered the phone in Arabic.”
The Reider family didn’t know what had happened to Dor, Zvi’s son until they received the devastating news that he had been murdered. Despite the horrific situation he found himself in, Zvi is still optimistic: “When I completed the Shiva (the seven-day Jewish mourning period), I went to the funeral of an MDA volunteer, Yarin Peled. It was important for me to be at her funeral. I know Yarin as an MDA volunteer, but also as part of the Military Intensive Care Unit. Yarin and the Military Intensive Care Unit were guests at our home many times. At the funeral, I understood what a wonderful, big, and supportive family MDA is. I ask everyone to stand tall – we are the spirit behind the soldiers fighting on the front lines. Am Yisrael Chai.”
