Muslim Doctor Lightly Injured After Protecting A Jewish Man With His Own Body During An Attempted Lynch in Tamra
Amid the violence plaguing numerous cities in Israel in the past week, a throng of Muslims attempted to lynch a Jewish man who entered the Muslim city of Tamra in the Galilee. In the incident which occurred on Wednesday night, the Jewish man was being beaten in what appeared to be a lynch until a Muslim doctor, Dr. Muhammad Awad, who volunteers with United Hatzalah, was dispatched to treat the injured person at the scene of violence.
Dr. Awad saw that the injured person was a Jewish man and physically intervened putting his own body in between the Jewish man and the Muslims who were hitting him.
The victim lives in the town of Mitzpe Aviv and frequently enters the town of Tamra to take care of errands. However, on Wednesday night, his errands ended rather differently as he was attacked by a throng of residents from the city who were rioting in the street. The rioters beat the Jewish man violently hitting him all over his body as he pleaded with them to let him go and return home.
One of the bystanders called emergency services for help in order that they should arrive and save the man, who was already bleeding profusely from numerous injuries. An ambulance arrived with five EMTs and paramedics and was being directed by Dr. Awad who works at the Bnei Tzion Hospital in Haifa and also volunteers as a first responder with United Hatzalah.
The ambulance crew eventually managed to extricate the Jewish man from the mob and transported him to Rambam Hospital in Haifa. He was in moderate to serious condition due to the severity of injuries he suffered.
Dr. Awad recounted the incident and said: “I received an alert that a person was injured during the protests, in the very heart of the protests, and that we were needed to head into them. We did not know the identity of the person injured when we were dispatched. As we began to enter the scene, we heard that he was Jewish. This made no difference to us, we entered the protest with all of our strength and found the man suffering from a stab wound to his neck and contusions all over his body. People were continuing to hit him. We yelled at everyone to stop immediately and we tried to extricate him from the angry mob. That is when we began to get hit ourselves.”
“People kept trying to hit him even after we loaded him up and tried to get him in the ambulance. I covered him with my own body and this is how I saved his life. This all took place in the heart of the village during the protests. This is where cars were burnt and where it is dangerous for even the police to enter.”
Dr. Awad concluded, “We saved this man’s life, and rescued him from the heart of the village and the protests. We did it in order to save his life even knowing that we would be injured and beaten ourselves.”
