Nahla, 72, was met by IDF doctor Gedaliah Pendel on her way to the Riml neighborhood in Gaza. She was left behind by her family who left in the humanitarian corridor before the fighting began, and since then he and his friends who occupy the area have been providing her with food, blankets and aid.
"They left her in front of us when she couldn't get ahead," Pendel tells me in a conversation from Gaza. "For two days we brought her blankets, a mattress and food. We tried to get her to the Red Crescent to take her to hospital – without success. We even talked a bit. She told me her name was Nahala, I told me my name was Gedaliah (Allahu Akbar)," he recalls.
"People passed by and ignored her"
"When another humanitarian corridor was organized, I located this cart you see in the video and harnessed myself to it to lead it to a place from which it could be boarded and join those leaving. I saw people walking past her while she was sitting on the floor and ignoring her, so we forced them to take her with them," he says, describing an impossible reality for a combatant in civilian territory.
The soldiers dragging the cart they had specially guarded to evacuate the elderly woman, Photo: None
The elderly Palestinian woman felt safe next to the soldiers who were dining with her all the while. And I wondered how he, as a resident of the envelope and someone who experienced the horrors of Black Sabbath, managed to find the strength to help while in Gaza fighting against a cruel enemy.
"It doesn't come easy but it comes naturally. I guess she was happy and dancing the day they killed us, but we weren't them. I felt sorry for the people I saw leaving their homes with their children."
Wrong? We'll fix it! If you find a mistake in the article, please share with us