Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency services recently held a joint emergency exercise with the National Ambulance (NA) of the United Arab Emirates.
The collaboration was another outcome of the historical Abraham Accords signed between Israel and the UAE and was supported by Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Idan Roll and Major General Khalifa Harb El Hili Emirates Under-Secretary of Internal Affairs.
As part of the collaboration, a joint virtual simulation took place last week, with observers from The Netherlands, Italy and France, simulating a Mass Casualty Incident Scenario involving a bus with dozens of injured passengers in challenging terrain and weather conditions, far from an urban area, in order to improve the emergency preparedness and exchange of knowledge.
During the virtual exercise, the scenario was simulated twice, the first time responded to by the MDA team and second time by the UAE Ambulance Services team, presenting the operational protocols of the two organizations, facing dilemmas and their answers, to enrich the participants’ knowledge.
“The two parties specified during the drill the importance of the collaboration and the fact that the communities in both countries rely on their emergency services to provide an immediate, efficient and professional response during emergencies,” MDA stated Sunday.
“This is the commitment of the organizations and authorities, to learn from each other and improve, to be better prepared for emergency and disaster situations that unfortunately might occur,” the Israeli EMS added.
Eli Bin, MDA Director-General, stated that the joint drill is “a historical event of exchanging knowledge, technologies and experience that we have gathered over the years.”
“At the same time, we have learned a lot about the challenges that our friends at the UAE, that displayed their skills and new technologies, are confronting with. This is all about exchanging knowledge and joint learning; with the constant strive to improve the lifesaving abilities,” he said.