An Israeli paramedic who worked around the clock transporting countless victims of Hamas’ terrorist attack likened the atrocities to a “horror movie” that have left him in need of treatment for PTSD.
Ari Yonatan, 32, a New York City native, was called to duty along with his colleagues on the morning of Oct. 7 to treat and transport those wounded from the coordinated attack launched by Hamas that ultimately claimed the lives of more than 1,400 people in Israel.
The paramedic and father-of-four soon found himself surrounded by the dead and injured along the Gaza border, saying his initial trip to the hospital to drop off the first round of wounded set the stage for what would transpire for the entire day.
“When I arrived at the hospital with my wounded, it truly felt like a horror movie,” he told The Post. “Everyone was screaming, it was chaos, and everything felt like it was moving in slow motion. I was just standing there, numb.”
“If you were there, your mind, your soul would be harmed by the images,” he added. “I know mine suffered.”
The nightmare for the Staten Islander began at around 6 a.m., when instead of waking up to the celebration of Sukkot, he awoke to hear rocket fire coming from the Gaza Strip.
While the sound wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for him, Yonatan realized something was wrong when the rockets began firing off more frequently, and from his balcony, he could see towns near Gaza covered in smoke.
He quickly called his dispatcher at Magen David Adom to let them know he could volunteer to work during the holiday if they needed him, which was certainly the case.
“My dispatcher said there were dead and injured everywhere, that we had 300 calls coming in and that they needed everyone to come to the station,” he said.
Yonatan quickly drove off to the Kibbutz of Ofakim, but before he could reach it, his dispatcher warned him that it was under fire by Hamas invaders, likely saving his life.
Instead, Yonatan headed north towards Netivot, where he parked by the town entrance to load civilians, police and Israeli soldiers suffering from gunshot wounds.
As he desperately loaded the injured, Yonatan could hear gunshots, rockets flying over his head, and sirens blasting everywhere.
Once he got to the hospital, he learned the scope of the terror that besieged his country.
“Hamas had massacred hundreds, burning people alive, cutting off their heads, raping women and taking hostages,” he said. “The whole day involved seeing this terrible, terrible carnage.”
“I would go to the scenes of gunfire, go to the hospitals, and then go back,” he added. “This was just cruelty.”
Like so many others in Israel, Yonatan later learned that many of his friends were among those killed in the terrorist attack, including three of his colleagues.
The first was Aharon Haimov, 25, a father-of-two who drove ambulances for Magen David Adom.
Yonatan described his friend as a man with a “heart of gold” who brightened up the room with his smile. The ambulance driver was dispatched to a zone where the IDF was fighting off Hamas when one of the terrorists shot his vehicle and killed him.
The second was Amit Mann, 22, a paramedic who worked with Yonatan and was at a clinic when terrorists barged in to kill everyone.
“She was in the infirmary, treating patients until the last moment when they were killed in cold blood,” Yonantan said.
The third was Aviya Hazroni, 69, who was lovingly referred to as the “grandpa” of the station. Hazroni, who always loved sharing stories with all the emergency workers, was also shot while out trying to save others.
As he witnessed horror after horror while deployed, Yonatan said one of the stories that stuck out to him was of the massacre at the Nova music festival in the desert, where one of the survivors he rescued recounted to him the murder of a pregnant Arab woman.
“She spoke to them in Arabic to plead for her life, and they told her that she was a traitor who was with Israel. Then they shot her in the stomach and killed her,” he recalled.
“These are people who have lost all sense of humanity,” Yonatan said. “What happened on Oct. 7 was a terror to the degree that our community hasn’t experienced since the Holocaust.
“What we’re fighting today is a mix of Nazis and ISIS terrorists,” he added. “That’s the horror of the opponent we face.”
While the day will live on in infamy in Yonatan’s mind, the paramedic said he has found some hope in the way Israel has united to destroy Hamas.
With Israelis volunteering for the IDF and emergency services en masse, Yonatan said his greatest hope would be to see the end of the terrorist group so that future generations could be spared the horrors he witnessed.
“We have to wipe them out,” he said of Hamas. “It is something that 100% has to be done. There is no room in this world for Hamas to exist.”