Yael Noy does not wear a military uniform, but describes herself as being immersed in a battle following the Hamas attack on October 7.
“I’m fighting to be good,” she says. “I am struggling to maintain morale when both sides are suffering such terrible pain. “I’m fighting to be the same person I was before.”
Yael runs the charity Road to Recovery, a group of Israeli volunteers who transport sick Palestinians – mostly children – from checkpoints in the occupied West Bank and Gaza to their hospital appointments in Israel.
Or, at least, he did before.
The approximately 1,000 volunteers can no longer receive patients from Hamas-ruled Gaza. AND four of these volunteers are deadkilled when Palestinian militants stormed their kibbutz in southern Israel.
Among them are Vivian Silver, a renowned peace activist; Adi Dagan, whom Yael describes as “fun” and always willing to step in and transport patients on short notice in his spacious car; Tammy Suchman, a much-loved grandmother; and Eli Or-Gad, who loved to talk about poetry.
Four other volunteers lost close family members on October 7.
Some 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas attack on Israel. Since then, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says more than 17,177 people have been killed in the ensuing Israeli offensive.
Yael lives in northern Israel, but her parents are from Kibbutz Alumim, one of the southern communities that were attacked, and they had to take shelter in terror as the attack unfolded.
Two of his nephews have been fighting in Gaza, in Israel’s military response.
Immediately after October 7, Yael says she was so shocked she could barely breathe.
“Something broke in my heart and I told myself that I would never speak to the people of Gaza again,” he tells me.
But after a few days, she decided she couldn’t let atrocities change her.
She and most Road to Recovery volunteers have continued to transport Palestinians from the West Bank to hospitals in Israel for cancer treatment, organ transplants and kidney dialysis. As soon as she can, she assures that she will go again to pick up patients in Gaza.
Yael refuses to dehumanize them or equate them with Hamas, which the UK and other countries classify as a terrorist organization.
“Like us, they are victims of Hamasso I think we should continue helping them, because it is not their fault,” he says by phone.
“We cannot refuse to help a child with cancer. Our neighbors need help, so we must help them.”
The activist worries about the families she knows in Gaza, with winter approaching and so many houses bombed that they are now uninhabitable.
The father of a 6-year-old boy, who had received an organ transplant, sent a text message to one of the Road to Recovery volunteers saying simply: “we’re ok. Let’s die here“.
Yael is also very concerned about two Road to Recovery volunteers, Oded Lifschitz and Chaim Peri, who remain kidnapped by Hamas.
Emotionally, she feels devastated. She has uncles and cousins who strongly oppose what she is making of her and accuse her of helping Hamas.
And it’s not just family members who disapprove.
“When I drive with Palestinians through checkpoints in the West Bank, soldiers ask me how can I do what I’m doing”, tells me. “Other people ask the same question.”
“Now it is dangerous to even talk about the suffering of children in Gaza: people look at me as if I were the enemy,” he says between sobs.
“But I don’t do it for the Palestinians, I do it because I want to be proud to be Israeli. I believe that whether you are Israeli or Palestinian, Jewish or Arab, people are people. “
Some Palestinian families have contacted her to find out how she is doing. But right now, the situation is more difficult than ever for those few people who are swimming against the current trying to bridge the gap between Israelis and Palestinians.
“Even people on the left say we should raze Gaza. Both sides have become increasingly radicalized“says Yael.
“I don’t know what will happen in the future. But I know we will both continue to live here, so we have to find a solution.”
Since October 7, some Road to Recovery volunteers have stopped participating or decided to focus on bringing medicine to displaced Israelis for the duration of the war.
But other volunteers have signed up to make sure sick Palestinians in the West Bank continue to make it to life-saving medical appointments.
Yael states that the charity will need support from the outside world to continue functioning, since donations from within Israel have practically ceased.
But she is sure that, when possible, Road to Recovery will pick up child patients from Gaza again, in the hope that they have all survived.
“It may be difficult, but we can’t stop,” he says. “It is my mission and I have to fulfill it.”
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