An unsung hero rescuing lives at the Gaza-Israel checkpoint

[Mosby]

At the end of last month, with fighting between Gaza and Israel already in full swing, Israeli medic Moshe "Moshon" Vaknin drove an ambulance to the Erez Crossing, between Israel and Gaza, and got ready to evacuate an injured Palestinian child.

With Israeli mortars fired on one side, and bullets passing overhead from the other, Vaknin, the deputy director for the south district at Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel's version of the Red Cross, risked his life to bring the Palestinian child out of Gaza and take him to an Israeli hospital for life-saving treatment.

Since then, he's brought out two more wounded Palestinian children for treatment in Israeli hospitals, and last week, was one of a team of medics who drove in to the checkpoint, the most dangerous in Israel and possibly the Middle East, in a special bulletproof ambulance to rescue Palestinian truck drivers, hired by the United Nations, and attacked while delivering humanitarian aid.

"It's unbelievably dangerous. It's crazy. The scariest place," says Vaknin, who took the injured truck drivers to Barzilai Hospital in Israel, and normally never goes so deep inside the checkpoint.

http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enDispWho=Articles%5El2418&enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enVersion=0&enZone=Profiles&

[atreides1]

1. A Very Brave Man

[LeftishBrit]

2. That;'s a real hero.

[shira]

6. agreed

If only the Palestinian gov't allowed for such heroes, this war would be completely unnecessary.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. Glad to hear of this

now if only there could be more folks like him and fewer like the IDF.....

[cali]

4. odds are extremely high that he served in the IDF

people are rarely easy to pigeon hole.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

5. but he's not in the IDF right now

and it is the actions of the IDF right now that I am commenting upon.