MDA trains at risk communities in preparation for future military-style attacks

• Published date: 17 April 2024
• Author: JERUSALEM POST STAFF
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

The initiative, known as the Magen Project, was designed to address future military-style terror attacks

The emergency response teams were developed in the wake of both the mass Iranian aerial attack and Hamas's October 7 attack – in which terrorists murdered over 1200 people and kidnapped over 250 more.

MDA will also provide the teams with stores of medical equipment, and connect them to MDA's National Operations Center, through which they will be integrated into a vast network of EMTs and paramedics.

During the October 7 attacks, Hamas terrorists deliberately isolated southern communities on the Gaza border with heavily armed bands of terrorists, who targeted ambulances and blocked roads in and out of these towns. While MDA responded quickly by dispatching EMTs and paramedics from its stations across the country, firefights between terrorists and responding police and troops necessitated MDA setting up impromptu treatment clinics until patients could be safely evacuated from the area. As a result, in some cases, injured people could not receive help until roads were secured.

The MDA hope that by training a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) and integrating them with local security professionals, MDA will ensure that injured patients always receive critical care, even on the rare occasion when external teams cannot immediately get to the site of an attack.

What training will be provided?

Currently, MDA is establishing 1,000 CERTs, comprised of 10 to 25 members per team, in areas where the threat is most imminent, including cities in the north threatened by Hezbollah attacks, Gaza Border communities, and towns in the West Bank. Each team is being provided with emergency medical training and supplies based on local needs, according to Uri Shacham, MDA's chief of staff.

"The communities are the best authorities on what they need," Shacham said. "We're working with each locality in a very personalized way to provide the kind of training and equipment that will be of most use to them."

MDA provides CERT members who are already EMTs with specialized primary medical care training; it...