On October 7, 2023, at 6:29 a.m., sirens tore through a peaceful morning. I assumed it was another routine rocket attack. Within minutes, the reports made clear it was something else entirely.
Three years later, I still can’t believe it. It was the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust, a day that changed everything and left a scar on me that will never fade.
If you had told me on October 6 that hundreds of innocent Jews would be murdered, kidnapped, brutalized, and raped, and that vast swaths of the world would then side with the terrorists, I would never have believed you. Yet here we are.
But there is one difference between 1939 and now. The Jewish people have a homeland and the strength to defend themselves, as we saw recently on flydubai flight FZ1073. Jewish blood is not cheap. However dark these three years have been, we are still here, still standing, and still strong.
Fighting my way back in
I had been out of uniform for 17 years. I had aged out of reserve duty, and nobody had called me. But I had once served as a combat medic in Givati; I had never stopped volunteering, and my work as a tour guide had kept me fit.
On October 8, I took my old uniform out of the closet, and my heart pounded as I put it on. It still fit! I had to fight back.
As Australian podcaster Erin Molan noted, “At a time when the battle between good and evil has never mattered more and lies have become the acceptable norm – some stand tall and fight back.”
Getting the army to take me back is a story that is funny in its sheer Israeli-ness: persistence, improvisation, and a flat refusal to accept the word “no.” It is also deeply humbling.
I was one of thousands too old to be activated, who ached to help and felt helpless on the sidelines. I fought to fight. Many others gave up far more than I did.
Three years later, I am still in the same unit.
The medical cavalry
I serve in a Palmar, a combat medical extraction unit. Forget the M*A*S*H tents of television. We are the medical cavalry. We move with the troops and work alongside the air force’s elite search and rescue Unit 669. When a soldier falls, we are already running toward him.
Since the war began, Palmar units have carried out more than 3,000 evacuations, over 400 of them by helicopter. A few made headlines, like the rescue of singer and actor Idan Amedi. But most never did.
I think of the badly burned soldier who whispered, through unbearable pain, that he hoped to be a father one day. He is now on the long road of rehabilitation. I think of the countless others whose names you will never hear, and whose faces I will never forget.
Start-Up Nation on the battlefield
Israel is the Start-Up Nation, and that spirit reaches all the way to the battlefield. We have cracked the “golden hour,” the critical window between a soldier being wounded and reaching a hospital.
Our teams carry real blood into the field, along with embedded physicians, surgeons, and portable ultrasound. Digital systems update helicopter crews and hospital staff in real time, so the operating room already knows the injuries before the casualty arrives. The handoff is seamless, and it saves lives.
Our commander, Lt.-Col. “D.,” summed it up: “When the troops see us coming, they know they can return to the fight, because the door to the hospital has just been opened.”
Under fire, together
Every unit includes combat soldiers alongside medics, paramedics, and doctors, which makes evacuation under fire possible. And I must pay tribute to the women of the IDF.
When I first enlisted, units were not integrated as they are today. Now they are, and their impact has been enormous, not only in this war but in how the IDF fights.
The opposite of the ‘helpless Jew’
There is an old narrative of the helpless Jew. This war has shown the opposite: a nation strong, resilient, and unbowed, able to face its most vicious enemies despite, not because of, October 7.
What moves me most is who stands beside me. Religious and secular, Left and Right, immigrants and Sabras, Jewish and non-Jewish.
Someone is bleeding, a helicopter is inbound, and nobody asks how you vote. A society that had grown bitterly divided came together, and in our units it has stayed together. That is Zionism at its core: we have no other land, and we are responsible for one another.
Three years on
I have spent over two years on the Gaza front and just under one year on the Lebanon front. It has been exhausting, and it has been the privilege of my life. Every evacuation compresses the whole story into a few desperate minutes: the speed, the skill, the technology, and, above all, the people.
The hardest part is often the gap between the army and the outside world. In moments of respite, the noise of the world trickles in, and the contrast with the unity inside our ranks is jarring and painful. I wish more people could see what that unity looks like up close.
That is why I wrote Heroes of Palmar: How One IDF Unit Revolutionized Combat Medicine in Gaza, published this year. It tells the stories of hope, unity, and Zionism that deserve to be heard.
As ambassador Michael Oren (a reserve major) wrote, “For all those who love Israel and care about those who gave so much defending it, this work is an important account of one IDF unit’s vital contribution to the war effort in Gaza. It is a powerful source of inspiration.”
Amedi, one of the many soldiers my unit saved, stood on stage at his comeback concert after 18 months of rehabilitation and said: “Tuvia, to you and all the dear people of the IDF rescue units, thanks to whom I can stand on this stage, we love you!”
The feeling is mutual. After three years, we still carry them to safety, and they carry the future of our nation and our people.
Am Yisrael Chai!
The writer is a licensed tour guide, Jewish educator, and Judaica artist currently serving on IDF reserve duty. He is the author of Heroes of Palmar: How one IDF Unit Revolutionized Combat Medicine in Gaza (Gefen Publishing), as well as For the Sake of Zion, A Curriculum of Israel Education and Jewish Journeys (Koren), books on both the First Temple and Second Temple periods. www.booktuvia.comwww.booktuvia.com