Two United Hatzalah Ambucycles were stolen from two different Jerusalem neighborhoods, and a third attempted theft took place in Tel Aviv over the first day of Sukkot.
One of the ambucycles stolen was recovered by a joint effort by the organization, the IDF, and the Israeli police, after it was tracked to the Palestinian Authority controlled town of
ad-Dhahiriya (Dahariya) south of Hebron. The second vehicle has yet to be recovered.
In Tel Aviv, thieves attempted to steal one of the organization’s ambucycles but were deterred by the internal security system and protocols put in place by the organization to safeguard the vehicles.
קטנוע של איחוד הצלה נגנב לשטחים והוחזר ע"י חיילי צה"ל שהבחינו בו pic.twitter.com/E6QAQPmDoT
— dudi dolev (@dudi_dolev)
In addition to being secured by a thick metal chain that is put in place by its driver overnight and a series of other protocols put in place by the organization, each United Hatzalah ambucycle is secured and tracked utilizing advanced technology from Ituran Location and Control Ltd. Ituran’s tracking technology was responsible for locating the stolen vehicle in Hevron on Tuesday.
“These were the third, fourth, and fifth attempts this week to steal United Hatzalah ambucycles,” said President and Founder of United Hatzalah Eli Beer. Unfortunately, this has become somewhat of a plague affecting the work of our volunteers who rely on these vehicles to respond to medical emergencies and save lives. These are the first two attempts in a while to have been successful and in both cases, the protocols put in place by the organization were circumvented, something that the thieves did not succeed at doing in the other three instances, including today in Tel Aviv. Thanks to our partnership with Ituran, and our collaboration with the IDF and the police, both of whom responded to the situation quickly and effectively, we were successful in recovering one of the ambucycles and we will work tirelessly until we recover the second.”
“It is the worst feeling to wake up and walk outside and instead of seeing my ambucycle chained up and parked where it normally is, to simply see a cut chain and no ambucycle. I was not able to respond to any medical emergency over the holiday because of it and there were quite a few in my neighborhood,” said Avraham, the United Hatzalah volunteer EMT whose ambucycle was stolen.