A heroic 22-year-old Israeli ambulance paramedic spent her final hours trying to help the wounded inside a clinic that was overrun by rampaging Hamas terrorists, as revealed in heartbreaking text messages sent to her sisters as the carnage unfolded.
Amit Mann spent six hellish hours Saturday sheltering inside the medical facility in Kibbutz Be’eri in southern Israel near the Gaza border with dead bodies and bleeding victims, reported the Israel news outlet Ynet.
Throughout the harrowing ordeal, with armed militants closing in, Mann communicated with her sisters, Haviva Isaacson and Lior, via WhatsApp, repeatedly asking them for updates on the military’s movements and desperately pleading for help.
“Do you have more medical personnel with the injured?” asked Lior, to which Mann replied: “There’s a nurse and a dentist here. We’re doing what we can.”
She said that there are many injured people who are “bleeding out” but there is no way to evacuate them.
Lior then asked if Mann can hear gunshots outside.
“Yes. It’s never ending. It looks like there are more terrorists. They’re in people’s houses. Army forces have been hit,” Mann reported back.
Lior tried to reassure her sister, urging her not to lose hope and wait for the military to come and liberate the besieged clinic.
“It’s a war and we’ll win — we’re stronger,” she wrote. “Focus on taking care of yourself. It’ll be over soon.”
Mann replied by saying: “I love you. Thank you.”
In a separate message to her other sister Haviva, Mann said that she was hiding in the clinic’s kitchen armed with a knife until the attackers seized control of the site.
“They’re here. They’re in the clinic. I don’t think I’ll make it out of here.” Mann texted. “Please be strong if something happens to me.”
In her final moments, Mann managed to make a phone call to her family, on which she could be heard crying out above the sound of gunfire: “They’re on me! They shot my legs!”
Mann’s siblings would spend the next two days frantically trying to track her down amid the chaos of Israel’s war on Hamas.
On Monday, the paramedic’s body was found along with at least 107 others in the battle-scarred kibbutz.
“My heart is broken and bleeding,” Lior told Ynet after learning of her sister Amit’s death. “She was the princess of our home, the light of our lives who lost her life in the battle for Be’eri, and as an experienced medic, tried saving lives until the last moment when she was murdered by evil terrorists.”
Officials with Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel’s national ambulance service, released a statement praising Mann for her courage.
“Amit was a heroic paramedic who continued to treat the wounded even while terrorists tried to break into the clinic in Kibbutz Be’eri,” MDA Director General Eli Bin said. “She sacrificed herself while trying to protect the lives of the patients – her priority was only what was best for them.”
“Her untimely passing left us shocked and in pain. Magen David Adom cherishes all that Amit has done, and our employees and volunteers bow their heads and hug her family. May her memory be blessed,” he added.
Mann began her career at the ambulance service in 2015 as a youth volunteer. Four years ago, she was qualified as an EMT and later as a paramedic, working in intensive care mobility in Israel’s Negev region.
“During her entire time at MDA, Amit acted professionally, with a great sense of duty in her work,” the agency stated. “Amit dreamed of studying medicine and continuing to save lives.”
Saturday’s massacre in Kibbutz Be’eri claimed the lives of 10% of the rural community’s population, with reports coming out of Israel claiming that entire families were indiscriminately slaughtered in their homes.