A few days after Hillel Bisan woke up from a coma, his nephew Julian, then 7, sat down at his bedside.
"Get up," the boy whispered to him.
"Get up. My father died while serving in the IPS, and you promised that even if you were like him, at the IPS, you would not die. So you must get up."
Hilal was then in a critical condition, after two bullets pierced his body as he tried to stop an escape attempt by one of the inmates from Rimonim Prison where he was serving.
For several weeks it oscillated between life and death, leaving with paralysis on the left side of the body and with one lung.
"Parts of my body had to die, for me to get a second chance at life," he says.
To this day he suffers.
He uses crutches, but sometimes, in the evening, he gets tired and goes into a wheelchair.
He has been dealing with post-trauma for years, waking up on sweaty nights.
But every morning anew Hilal chooses to live.
Chooses to be a father, husband and uncle devoted to his nephews, whom he adopted as if they were his children.
"When asked how many children I have I answer 'three, and three more,'" he says, "three of my own, and three more of my brother, Jalal. When he was killed I took care of his children, and my children feel like their brothers. It's a connection. A special one that is difficult to explain, a strong connection. "
Sergeant Hilal Bisan (40) is married to Hand (31) and the father of Roland (8), Hanel (3) and Nilai (3 months). The army and the security forces, who grew up loving the country. His father, Fallah, was a security guard for senior government officials.
He is a twin in a trio of brothers, who also have an older brother and three younger sisters.
One of his brothers in the trio, Jawad, was one of the first Druze to be admitted to a pilot course.
Although he did not complete the course, he went on to full military service.
Jalal and Hillel served in the 300th Brigade in Lebanon, in the Sword Regiment Patrol.
"We were inside Lebanon. In ambushes, clashes, shooting incidents," Hilal recalled, "we saw our friends wounded, killed, and when I would ask Jalal what would happen, he would answer 'it will be okay.' Those words, 'it will be okay,' no. "They leave me to this day. Whenever someone tells me it's okay, I know something's going wrong."
After the army, each of the brothers turned in a different direction.
Jawad worked as a security guard at El Al, Hilal as an Egged driver and coach of the youth team at Hapoel Haifa in football, and Jalal went to the IPS. "We were very similar in appearance and behavior, and also very related to each other.
If something were to happen to one of us, the other two would feel unwell.
It has always connected us. "
When he talks about Jalal, the heart contracts.
One look at his picture, which hangs in the living room of the house, and the resemblance between the two does not let up.
After the disaster, Hilal recounts quietly, changing his hairstyle and growing bristles, "so that Jalal's children do not get confused between us."
Slowly, with a shudder, he details every moment of that damn day, December 2, 2010, when his brother, Mishar Jalal Bisan, perished in the great fire that took place in Carmel.
"I was working as an Egged bus driver in Haifa at the time," he says. "Around three o'clock in the afternoon, my phone rang and rang. A mutual friend of mine and Jalal, who worked at the IPS, did not stop calling.
I usually do not answer while driving, but I felt something was wrong.
I stopped and answered, and he asked if I had talked to Jalal, because of the fire.
Jalal was then at all in an officers course at Nitzan Prison, I did not think he was in the area, but the friend said that his course was bounced to Carmel to evacuate Damon Prison, and that there is a rumor that the whole bus came under fire.
"He said that the IPS had opened a situation room at Rambam, and I made a crazy U-turn with the bus, all the passengers in it. I called a policeman who happened to be in the area, explained to him that I must run to Rambam and asked him to take care of passengers, and I ran away.
"I was perhaps one of the first family members to come to the hospital, and all the media people jumped on me. There was a girl from the IPS situation room who asked who I was, and when I said that my brother was in a prison course she called three officers.
"They stood in front of me with a serious face and told me that the bus had caught fire, and that everyone who was on it was not alive."
He closes his eyes tightly.
"I argued with them. I grabbed one of the officers by the shirt, and shouted at him to stop lying. Javad called me from Berlin, he was stationed there at El Al station, and I started crying for him on the phone, but he said to me 'Dude, calm down, I feel he's alive. You do not feel it? Did you forget that we feel each other? '
It was like such a slap in the face, that showed me I needed to reset.Jawad said he was boarding a flight back and ordered me to ask to see Jalal 'because he's alive'.
"I started raging there, and the staff at the hospital did not understand what I wanted from them. Meanwhile the rumors about the bus started running, and I started getting calls from my parents, my older brother Summer and my fiancée at the time. She asked me if I felt Jalal, and when I said yes she She said, 'So this is it, he's alive.'
"I asked everyone to come to Maimonides, and I waited.
Someone from the IPS showed me a video, in which one of the officers who accompanied Jalal in the ambulance filmed him barely saying, 'Call helicopters, there are dead, there are wounded, and we must get them to the ambulance.' He told the ambulance driver that he must return home because his wife is pregnant, And that's it. The video is over.
"I was sitting on the side, completely broken, when a girl from the hospital approached me and told me that an anonymous wounded man had arrived, who was very similar to my brother. I looked at her with big eyes and shouted 'I told you he was alive!', And I ran with her to the intensive care unit to see him."
"I was told that everyone who was on it was not alive."
The prison bus that burned in the Carmel disaster, Photo: AFP
The painful memory floods him.
To this day he can smell the fire that surrounded the intensive care unit where Jalal was lying.
He points to a spot in his abdomen, where Jalal had a point of interest, through which he recognized him.
"I went into the room and saw a very hard mirror. 90 percent of his skin was burnt because he ran 300 meters into the fire. He was anesthetized and respirated. I approached him, whispered in his ear 'Fight, you have a girl on the way, give a fight'. The two doctors looked at me. "One of the girls in the situation room started crying, and I kept telling him to fight. Because of his difficult situation, the doctors asked me to give a saliva sample to complete the identification by DNA testing."
What did you tell the family?
"I did not know what to tell them. I knew he was alive, but also that there was a chance he would not last long. I drew forces I did not know I had, and asked to speak to them alone. I did not want this role, of the informant, but I had no choice. Once Dad "My saw my look, he started crying. My father is a strong man, he never cried next to us, but at that moment he fell apart."
"A decision of pain and longing"
44 people perished in the Carmel disaster, 37 of them IPS personnel. Jalal, one of the only ones who came to the hospital alive, died of his wounds nine days after the disaster.
"On December 11, Saturday morning, Jawad and I started to feel unwell," Hilal recalls.
"Then three doctors came to us, and we realized that Jalal did not survive. I see it as a laugh of fate - three doctors, three brothers. They said what they said, and I felt like I was being thrown into a bottomless pit. Jalal's wife started screaming, "My father broke down, and I grabbed his head and said, 'Now I understand how you feel, as a bereaved brother.' At that moment, I also realized that I was sponsoring Jalal's children."
Jalal's funeral was held the next day.
"Crowds of people came to Jat," says Hilal.
"It was good for us to know that all the people of Israel are with us. Gives strength to continue, even though the sequel was very difficult. Julian, Jalal's eldest son, asked me to explain to him how his father was killed, and why the fire broke him. I replied that Jalal "He fought the fire, but she was stronger than him. Then he asked why they did not open the coffin at the funeral, as is our custom to do, to say goodbye to the dead. I could not stop the tears, and I replied that we did not want to cut the flag. My heart was broken."
After the disaster, serious allegations arose against the conduct of the fire services, the police and the IPS. Many of the families of the victims took legal action against senior police officers.
"We are people who believe, so I believe in fate. Yes, there were failures in the Carmel disaster, but no one sent him intentionally to die there. We preferred not to fight the system and government, out of love for the country and understanding that no one did it on purpose. We preferred to concentrate on pain and commemoration." .
"If something happened to one of us, the other two would feel unwell."
Right: Jawad, Jalal and Hilali, Photo: From the family album
And the pain was unbearable.
Within a year of mourning, Hilal's father contracted cancer.
For a year he underwent treatment at Rambam Hospital, the same hospital where he was informed that his son had been killed.
And he recovered. "
Half a year after Jalal's death, his third daughter, Jawal, was born.
Jalal's children, Julian (now 15), Ian (13) and Javal (already 11 and a half years old), live with their mother, Vivian, a few hundred meters from Hilal's house, and he is the male figure in their lives.
"I help with homework, take to schools and classes, and also have mental conversations with them."
About a year and a half after the disaster, Hilal decided to follow in his brother's footsteps and enlist in the IPS. "It was a momentary decision, of pain and longing," he says. Through him.
"The family did not welcome it, but for me it was very important. I had to make his dream come true. I remember even Julian was scared. When I told him I was going to do what his father did, he said he was afraid I would die. I told him. "Do not worry, I will not die. Everything is fine." I informed the whole family that this is what I want to do for myself, for Jalal, and I enlisted. "
Hilal's path to the IPS was not easy. He had to improve his matriculation grades, and pass a two-year entrance exam ("But I asked all the commanders not to give me the relief"). Jalal wrapped him in every moment.
"We had two days of formation in Ramla, and they took us on a tour of Nitzan Prison, where my brother took the officers' course. As I entered the prison, one of the prisoners said 'What, is he alive?'
"An officer who knew me from Jalal's funeral told me not to comment, but he himself started crying. I tried to hold myself, but I had a very hard time there."
At night, Hilal slept on his brother's mattress, and the unveiling of the course's badges was held at a monument erected in memory of those who perished in the Carmel disaster.
"For me it was closing a circle. I felt I was starting a new path in Carmel."
"I will live. I will live. I will live"
Hilal was assigned to serve as a security guard at Rimonim Prison, which houses white-collar criminals, crime families and serious criminals.
"On February 23, 2014, about two years after I was placed in Rimonim Prison, Sunday, I was asked to go to Cell 22 on Wing 5, to transfer prisoner Samuel Scheinbain to another ward. I remember well the numbers, the people, the votes.
"I was told that from this morning the prisoner is driving them crazy, that every time they come to move him he says he is still getting organized, but because I look big and muscular maybe he will listen to me. I came to him and told him to prepare the equipment because he is passing a wing. Student, with a backpack. It lit a red light for me.
"I asked the jailer who came with me to check what was with his equipment, while I was going to sign him on wing crossing forms. When I accompanied him from his cell to a reception log in that wing, he suddenly started running to the second floor, where there was a wing director's office. I chased him, and he went into the bathroom. And locked himself there.
"I shouted at him 'Samuel, what's up with you?', And he told me 'Do not worry, it's going to be okay.' The connection, I was fighting at the door of the bathroom to open it, and suddenly I felt a first boom.
"A bullet went into my chest, got a deviation from the rib and flew from the shoulder to the eye. I still did not understand that it was a live shot, I did not imagine he had a gun. I kept kicking the door and calling him, I did not understand being shot. Then a second boom. And came out of the back.I started snoring but kept standing.
"Then he fired more bullets, which left holes in the door. I pushed the jailer who was with me back so that he would not be hit by the shooting. I told myself that if I fell to my knees, I would not get out of there alive. The rest of my body responded well, because I was strong, so I held the door. With one hand and with the other I signaled to the other guards who came to move. I shouted at them, 'Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!'
"And I'm still on my feet, but I started to get foggy. I was in a crazy adrenaline rush, which held me for a few more minutes until I felt it was hard for me to breathe. I do not remember what stage it was, but they brought me a Druze sheikh and the prison rabbi, and I remember telling them I Do not want to die.They told me God will determine.
"People say that before you die, you see your whole life like in a moving movie. But I saw nothing. I felt like I was putting a barrier in myself, like putting horses on the sides of my head, and I focused all my thoughts on staying alive. I said to myself 'I will live. I'm. "I will live. I will live." Until I lost consciousness. "
Eight guards were injured in the shooting of Scheinbain, an American Jew who was charged with murder in the United States and fled to Israel. He apparently smuggled the weapon to prison when he returned from one of his vacations.
The moments after his fall Hilal heard only from others.
Slowly, excitedly, he describes how he was laid on a stretcher, how the paramedics of the Masada unit treated him on the ground, how he arrived at Meir Hospital in Kfar Saba, where two doctors thought the chances of rescuing him were low, while the third, Dr. Guy Lin, was in charge. Trauma, fighting for his life.
In an unusual move, Dr. Lynn put his hand in Hilal's chest, and with bare hands massaged his heart to put him back into action.
Hilal underwent two CPRs and a lung resection that night, received dozens of doses of blood and was anesthetized and respirated for about a month and a half in intensive care.
"And all this time Jalal was with me. He said to me, 'Get up, why are you lying here? I ran into the fire and not when, and you died from two bullets?'
And I argued with him that it's hard for me, that I can not.
"On the last day I remember hearing a voice say to me 'Hilal, if you hear me open your eyes', and I open my eyes. And the voice tells me 'if you can, move your right foot', and I move my right foot. Then he asked to move "You left leg, and I fail. I realized something in me was dead for me to live. I woke up, and then I heard Julian tell me I promised not to die, and I realized I had to get up. For my wife, for the kids, for my family. To deal with the difficulty."
When he awoke from his coma, Hilal had to begin a long and difficult rehabilitation process.
He re-learned how to walk, how to breathe, how to rehabilitate speech, which was impaired as a result of prolonged breathing.
"I set myself goals. At first these were small goals. To raise an arm, a leg. To say a word or two. Then I aspired to go and speak fluently, with whole sentences."
In April 2014, he was released from the hospital and hospitalized for rehabilitation at Bnei Zion Hospital in Haifa. In July, he moved to Sheba Tel Hashomer Medical Center, first to full hospitalization in the rehabilitation ward and then to day hospitalization.
I saw wounded soldiers, gunmen, young men whose lives had changed in an instant.
And I, who was set up for a medical conference, went to encourage them.
Show them that here, I was almost dead, and today I am alive.
Show them that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
I remembered how much it helped us, the family, when Jalal was hospitalized.
I wanted to convey to them this feeling that there is hope. "
"Special relationship".
With his children and nephews, during rehabilitation, Photo: From the family album
"I wanted answers"
From the ground house where he lives, the green Galilee landscape is in full bloom.
In a large wooden cabinet, behind clear glass, are the masterpiece decoration and the silver medal he received for his performance at the event. Two shelves above them stand a wooden heart with a picture of Jalal, and a memorial plaque in his memory. Jalal also received the masterpiece decoration, after his death, together With the rest of the victims of the Carmel disaster.
Hilal was recognized as an IDF disabled person, and is cared for by the Rehabilitation Division of the Ministry of Defense and the Friends of the IDF Disabled Friends Association.
"We had a difficult fight with the Rehabilitation Division so that I could be recognized as disabled," he emphasizes. Mine for others, and I have to fight to get rights.It's a feeling that you are being betrayed, that you are left alone in the battle.But two shots did not break me, nor will the Ministry of Defense break me.
"It bothers me that I am defined as an 'IDF invalid,' and that there is no definition of 'wounded by the security forces.'
After all, I was wounded in service at the IPS, not in the army. The dignity of every position lies in its place, but perhaps it is time to change the procedure. IDF soldiers enlisted to defend the country, and may be wounded.
"Those who enlist in the police, and especially in the prison service, come to provide service and deal with civilian incidents."
After the incident in which she was injured, serious allegations were made against the IPS. Do you share them?
"I do not want to make complaints to the IPS.
I love the system, I know no one did it on purpose.
But I want them to learn from what happened, that such a thing will not happen again.
"For years my requests to understand what happened there were ignored. Immediately after the incident, when I was in the hospital, investigators came to hear from me what happened. My father asked that I be given time to recover, and the investigators went back and forth. I mostly wanted to hear why my evacuation lasted all. So long, a time that was very critical, but for a long time I was not given any answers.
"It was only a few months later, when I was already in rehabilitation, that Katy Perry, now the IPS commissioner, came to us, so she was a human resources officer.
She was sitting in my house, with a few other officers, and they answered the difficult questions.
It restored my trust in the system. "
what did she tell you?
"Katie explained that there were many forces in the area - YMCA, the Masada unit and the police - who came to handle the incident, and that their vehicles blocked the way of the ambulance.
So yes, it might have been possible to act differently, but she at least explained what was there.
Was attentive to my and my family's pain.
To this day she keeps in touch with me.
It bothered me a lot that she was being attacked, and I felt it was because she was a woman.
In my opinion, her appointment is very worthy. "
In the past year, several significant incidents have taken place, indicating the incompetence of the IPS and the police.
"It bothers me that the uniformed men are remembered only when something negative happens. When the prisoners fled Gilboa prison, he wanted a picture on the Internet of the guards doing nothing, and embarrassed the IPS.
No one told what a hard, abrasive job this was.
There is not much manpower, and you and another warden are responsible for an entire wing of criminals, who just want to hurt you or run away.
"After the escape, children of IPS personnel refused to go to school out of shame because they saw that their parents were not valued.
After the disaster in Meron, children of police officers were ashamed.
And it hurt me.
I know what such an escape attempt is.
I know what shooting is, I experienced it for myself.
And the contempt hurts me, even of the politicians.
"If each of them had come to the prison for one hour, to work as a prisoner, they might have realized how difficult it is."
Would you like to return to serve in the IPS?
"No. Because I came out with my hand on the top. Besides, mentally I can not go back there, because I suffer from severe post-trauma.
"My post-trauma is transparent, and so is the injury. People see me with crutches and say, 'Well, he's walking on his feet.' I get up at night after nightmares, screaming, sweating.My little kids have become my parents, they come and calm me down at night.
"I have tantrums I can not control," he does not hide the tears, "I do not know how my wife endures with me, but she strengthens me in all she can. Copes with everything. My son came to hug me at night. My daughter , 3 years old, sits on me and gives me a massage for scars, that will not hurt.
"People do not understand it, but to live with post-trauma is to mourn every morning your health, your body, to live the event over and over again. It is a daily war. A war to get out of bed, a war to get out of the house, a war to live."
"My little kids have become my parents."
With his wife and children, Photo: Eric Sultan
"I realized I was breathing"
Now, after years of treatment and accompaniment by the Friends of the IDF Disabled Friends Association, he feels comfortable talking about the pain. .
Today I am not afraid to experience the memories, the pain again.
I went through a long process with myself, which gave me the tools to deal with everything I was going through.
"And the strongest place that has given me support, apart from my family, is other wounded."
When was your first encounter with other wounded?
"When I was in rehab, a representative from the association came to me and said, 'Start thinking about a trip after release.' I do not know how they knew, but that's what my brothers and I planned. We wanted to take a trip after release, and we did not deliver.
"Anyway, I started laughing. I told him 'I, who do not walk on my feet, will take a walk after release?'
But Adi Strauss, director general of the Friends of the IDF Disabled Friends Association, suggested that I join a trip to the lakes in Nepal. "In a relationship with a fan, and we laugh how even then we did not believe. Who will take a bunch of wounded like us to the trek in Nepal?"
Despite Hilal's skepticism, in April 2016 he set out with other IDF wounded for a trip after liberation in Nepal. "I felt on the roof of the world.
I felt like I was doing it for my brother and for me.
I remember climbing the mountain, and feeling suffocated.
Still, I'm with one lung.
But then I was told 'wait, get used to it'.
I took a breath, and realized I was breathing.
It was amazing.
"In this journey I learned things about myself. I did not believe that I, with paralysis on the left side, could walk. I did not believe I could get to places. I would not say easy for me. But there, in the frozen lakes of Nepal, with 20 heroes who are the salt of the earth, I realized I could do anything .
One of the significant events in the journey was the "burial ceremony", in which the participants said goodbye to an object that marked for them the closing of a circle and a new beginning.
Hilal brought with him a disc on which he engraved "Jalal my brother forever."
"I wrapped myself in the Israeli flag, saluted towards the sky, to Jalal, and buried the disk in the ground. Here I am, alive, on a trip after liberation that I did not have time to do with my brother. He was buried in the ground wrapped in a flag, and I live, wrapped in a flag."
Strauss has always believed that Hilal can be promoted, and he accompanies him to this day.
"Our moral duty is to embrace the wounded of the IDF and the wounded of the IDF. They are an integral part of Israeli society, and I am proud to have the right to take part in this process," he says. , And is an inspiration to me every day anew. "
"The concept of 'disabled' is just in the head."
With Strauss in Nepal,
Hilal recently underwent a workshop on self-fulfillment and growth from crises, as part of a "brothers" program of friends of the IDF Disabled People's Organization and the IDF Disabled People's Organization.
At the same time, he took a lecture building course and began giving lectures on his story to various companies and organizations.
"I want to show people that it is possible to deal with bereavement, injury, and come back to life. To show that even when you are at a low ebb, and think the world is over, you can get up.
"I was in the doldrums twice. My brother was killed, I was badly injured, I underwent two resuscitations, and here I am here. I did not study a second in school, and here I am the chairman of the parents' committee at my nephews and my son's school, and very active in promoting education.
And that's what's important for me to show.
That there is life after bereavement.
Hard, but alive.
And in the lecture, I give hope to people who are dealing with all kinds of difficult situations in life, and show them that it is possible to grow wings. "
batchene@gmail.com
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