- A 27-year-old Israeli paramedic was working in a hospital when Hamas attacked on Saturday.
- He said the hospital looked like a scene out of a World War II movie.
Yan Gorjaltsan, a 27-year-old Israeli paramedic, had just finished a 24-hour shift working for Israel's ambulance service, Magen David Adom, when Hamas militants infiltrated the south of the country and attacked and killed Israeli citizens in towns near the border with Gaza.
"I didn't even want to go home," he said, once he realized that Hamas got inside the Israeli border and people got kidnapped and killed. "Immediately, I enlisted. I'm not going home until you guys give me some injuries to save some lives of the Israelis."
Gorjaltsan was in Be'er Sheva, the largest city in the south, when he heard Hamas had infiltrated the nearby smaller city of Ofakim, so that's where he went. He helped transport injured victims in Ofakim to Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva, which provides services to 1 million people in the region.
Gorjaltsan described the hospital as a scene out of a World War II movie — nurses and doctors frantically taking care of patients while others scream for help.
"You can actually smell the blood in the air. People are lying on the floor," he said, adding that the trauma room in the hospital had to be closed to new patients because it was already so full.
"This was, like, lifesaving situations. People, they got injured so bad," he added. "Doctors ... decided not to take care of patients that were in critical situations because the chance of getting out of it, they're so little. So people had to die."
Gorjaltsan stayed to help in Ofakim for a few hours before returning home to safety. He said what he saw inside the hospital "looked awful."
He said the hospital is in his hometown, adding that in his work for Magen David Adom, he has transported patients there many times.
"I've seen it in terrible situations, but nothing compared to this," Gorjaltsan said.
Gorjaltsan said that everyone in the hospital was "shocked" by what they were seeing and experiencing and that no one could comprehend the magnitude of what was happening around them.
"I found myself there and saving lives instead of going home because I had to finish my shift, but nobody wanted to go home," he said. "Saturday was like the Wild West."
Gorjaltsan added that he's felt "comfort" from the sense of community in his home country. Although many Israelis are staying inside their own homes right now, "nobody wants to speak about anything else," he said, adding that people from around the country are donating supplies to hospitals and soldiers in overwhelming numbers.
"Even though we always have our differences, when something like this starts, everybody just stops talking and starts working," Gorjaltsan told Insider. "It's given me some sort of comfort that we're a big family of nine million people."
At least 1,000 Israelis have died since Saturday's massacre, according to the UN. Hamas has said an additional 100 people are being held as hostages in Gaza, but the Israeli Defense Forces told NBC News Monday that they estimate about 30 people were kidnapped by Hamas.
Israel has since launched retaliatory strikes on Gaza, killing 1,055 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.