Arab paramedic who treated Israelis injured by Hamas hailed as a hero
When Hamas unleashed its attack on thousands of Jews attending a music festival in southern Israel earlier this month, an Israeli Arab paramedic insisted on staying at the scene to try to save lives. In the end, he gave his own. Awad Darawshe was 23, single, handsome — but he wasn’t at the Tribe of Nova festival to dance. He worked for Yossi Ambulances and was among a team of paramedics assigned to work the festival in a tent on the site’s periphery. He was killed when Hamas militants slipped undetected into Israel from the Gaza Strip and butchered their way through the festival crowd and into nearby villages, settlements, and kibbutzim. Shortly after dawn on Oct. 7, rockets pierced the skies. Grenades went off. Gunfire ricocheted everywhere. Injured, bleeding revelers raced to the paramedics’ station. But the chaos quickly escalated. As the scope of the Hamas attack became clear, the station’s leader ordered the paramedics to evacuate. Darawshe refused to leave. He was shot to death while bandaging one of the injured. Days later, after his body was identified, the surviving paramedics told Darawshe’s family why he had chosen to stay. He felt that, as an Arab, he could somehow mediate with the attackers. “He said, ‘No, I’m not leaving. I speak Arabic, I think I can manage,’” said his cousin, Mohammad Darawshe, who spoke to The Associated Press by telephone from his home in northern Israel. That fateful decision has left the Darawshe family reeling with sorrow, their only comfort the bravery of Awad’s actions. “He brought us a lot of pain, he brought us a lot of agony, he brought us a lot of sorrow,” his cousin said. “But he also brought us a lot of pride — because he chose to stay with his mission until the last moment.” A funeral was held Friday in Iksal, a small Arab-majority village about 3 miles (5 kilometers) southeast of Nazareth. Several thousand mourners attended. The Darawshe family has lived in Iksal for generations. They are part of Israel’s Palestinian Arab minority that makes up about 20% of the population. They are the descendants of Palestinians who stayed in the country after the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. Unlike Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, they are full citizens of Israel, but they face widespread discrimination. Tensions between them and Jewish Israelis flare repeatedly, particularly in
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