2023-11-09 18:54:38
He is a man as hard as a rock, unwavering, who has seen it all since he founded Zaka, this group of volunteer ambulance workers who for thirty-three years have been collecting corpses and human remains during murders and attacks in Israel. . And yet, he burst into tears while recounting the tragedy of October 7, during a press conference organized in Jerusalem a week later. He mentions the body of a pregnant woman whose fetus was extracted from her womb – several other paramedics confirmed this discovery in a house in Be’eri. “We debated whether to put them in one or two body bags”says Yossi Landau before breaking down and leaving the room.
However, he knows the horrors of terrorism better than anyone, having created his organization following an attack on a bus where 17 Israeli civilians were killed. Having become essential, the organization today has 1,500 employees and volunteers in Israel, 700 abroad. Yossi Landau traveled around the world for rescue operations following disasters or massacres, in Haiti, Turkey, and also in Bombay after the 2008 attacks…
Trapped. An Orthodox Jew, this father of 10 children is also the boss of an international freight company, with offices in London and New York, where he was on September 11, 2001. After the attack, he rushed into the tower No. 2 of the World Trade Center to help evacuate employees. “The building collapsed on me, he mentions. I was trapped under the rubble for hours. »
After October 7, when some of his men were debating whether to also collect the bodies of the assassins, Landau made a point of doing so. “It is not just a question of respecting the principles of the Jewish religion, he explains. In all cultures, we must respect all life, whatever remains of it, that was created by God. »
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