During the war with Iran, the city of Dimona was among the hardest-hit areas in Israel. Entire buildings and homes were destroyed by missile fire. In response, The Fellowship provided additional support to rescue teams and volunteers by supplying disaster survival kits. Before receiving these kits, many volunteers were not fully equipped to carry out rescues during attacks of this magnitude.
Yonatan, former commander of Dimona’s Search and Rescue Unit, said this was especially true for him and his team.
“We, as a rescue team, came first to the ground. Together with our rescuers, we had our personal bags, thanks to The Fellowship’s donation. I want to say it’s incredible how useful these bags were. I can say some of them even saved some lives,” he said.
Dimona’s Search and Rescue team consists of only 66 volunteers — just 66 people responding to emergencies across an entire city. The team is primarily trained for earthquakes, which can occur in central Israel. Missile attacks, however, require a very different response, involving teams spreading out across larger areas to locate and assist victims in need.
Before The Fellowship’s donation, volunteers relied on communal equipment kits. Now, each volunteer carries everything they need on their back.
Yonatan said, “That’s the most amazing. I want to say it’s a kind of miracle. I think two weeks ago, something like that, a week before the strike to Dimona, we received 25 of those bags. We couldn’t ask for better timing. It’s just a miracle that it happened.”
He described the evacuation of approximately 1,148 residents from their homes to a hotel in a safe zone as a “mega event.” Volunteers rescued 148 injured people, including 20 critically injured cases.
Yonatan vividly remembers two of those rescues.
In one case, he rushed into a home that had caught fire to rescue an elderly woman trapped inside her shelter because the door was too heavy for her to open.
In another, he rescued an elderly man trapped inside his apartment. The door was blocked, so Yonatan entered through a window. The man was injured and bleeding, but Yonatan had all the tools he needed in his rescue kit to stop the bleeding. He said that without those supplies, the outcome could have been very different.
For Yonatan, volunteering and leading search and rescue teams is his way of serving Israel. When he made aliyah from Florida 10 years ago, he was too old to serve in the IDF. Joining a search and rescue unit gave him — and others like him — a meaningful way to contribute to and protect their homeland. For Yonatan, this mission is deeply personal.
“No matter what your origin, no matter what your thoughts are, your donation goes directly for lifesaving,” he said.
