In the past two years, the IDF has treated more than 2,000 wounded Syrians. Treating wounded desperately in need of medical help is what drives the IDF medics and paramedics. The Israeli government has not taken a position on the Syrian civil war, in which the Syrian regime, many factions of opponents, several terrorist organizations including ISIS, Russia, Iran and a coalition to which the U.S. belongs, are fighting.
The Friends of the IDF arranged for the interview with N, who traveled to the States earlier this month. N was brought to the New York area as part of a delegation of Israeli soldiers who attended the annual FIDF gala in northern New Jersey on Nov. 23rd.
The FIDF provides Israeli soldiers with all kinds of goods and services that the Israeli government is unable to provide. “The FIDF improves the lives of Israeli soldiers in all kinds of ways during their service, and even helps them with scholarships and training after their service,” N said.
Did she “have to be persuaded to leave the work she was doing elsewhere in Israel, to go to the north and treat Syrian casualties of its civil war,” N was asked.
“I wanted to help these victims, because my grandparents are Holocaust survivors, and nobody was there to help them,” N explained.
Now that she has finished her IDF service, N hopes to go on to medical school.
The one point that N wanted to make sure was included in this article, in addition to praising the FIDF for all the help it provides to Israeli soldiers, is the way she, as a female paramedic was treated by the IDF.
“I was one of the only female soldiers who went into the Gaza Strip,” during Operation Protective Edge, N said. “I was treated exactly the same as the male soldiers, women and men of equivalent training are treated the same. That makes me proud.”