United Hatzalah of Israel Founder and President Eli Beer with one of the organization’s ambucycles. Photo: United Hatzalah.

Eli Beer, the founder and president of United Hatzalah for Israel, has big hopes for the national emergency rescue organization he started as a mere local community project in Jerusalem as a teen.

“I want to make sure Israel has the fastest and most professional life savers. I want to make sure every street in Israel has a [United Hatzalah] volunteer and a defibrillator,” he told The Algemeiner. “Every time someone needs help, someone will be there immediately. That’s my goal, to secure the country this way. I’m trying to [make Israel] a place where no one will die unnecessarily. I can’t prevent death completely but I can really help a lot of people.”

Beer, 49, was five-years-old when he witnessed a bus explode during a terrorist attack in his neighborhood in Jerusalem while on his way home from school. He decided at that moment that he wanted to do something to help save lives.

“It was chaos in our neighborhood,” he recalled.”Everyone heard the bombing. People heard the screaming. We smelled the smell of flesh, and that impacted me a lot, seeing people on the floor … It was a trauma for me and instead of looking for revenge, it led to something beautiful: saving people’s lives.”

When he was 16, while volunteering with an ambulance in Jerusalem, Beer started a neighborhood-based service of volunteer medics who would arrive at a scene and begin first aid until ambulances arrive. His goal was to have these volunteers arrive within 90 seconds, solely around his neighborhood in Jerusalem, because if a person is suffering from oxygen deprivation longer than that brain damage can occur.

That local community project Beer started as a teen had 15 volunteers and now United Hatzalah of Israel has over 6,500 volunteers from all backgrounds. The volunteers hail from different religions, cultures and professionals; some are lawyers, accountants, garbage truck drivers and handymen. They arrive at the site of terrorist attacks across Israel before ambulances and last month a United Hatzalah volunteer delivered a baby boy a few blocks away from a Palestinian terror attack where two young Israeli brothers were killed.

With the help of its unique peer-to-peer GPS technology and innovative ambucycles — which are motorcycles used by United Hatzalah volunteers throughout Israel to ensure that they arrive at a scene within minutes — the organization’s average response time is less than 3 minutes across Israel and 90 seconds in metropolitan areas, according to its website.

Beer said that last year alone, United Hatzalah of Israel treated close to 800,000 people and since its founding in 1989 it has treated more than 6 million people. Its volunteers save over 150 people in Israel daily. Beer also travels to help communities around the world establish their own emergency response systems based on the United Hatzalah model and is currently working on doing so with the state of Iowa.

That evolution is chronicled in Beer’s biography, 90 Seconds: The Epic Story of Eli Beer and United Hatzalah. 

“We see United Hatzalah as a shining example to the world to copy,” he said. “As a tikkun olam.”

International response

Although based in Israel, United Hatzalah also helps with global emergencies. A team of volunteers stayed for over a year in Ukraine helping those affected by the country’s war with Russia and they were most recently in Turkey to help in the aftermath of last month’s deadly earthquake.

Beer said that while locals in Turkey were deeply appreciative for assistance, United Hatzalah volunteers also faced security threats from residents who were getting frustrated as their family members remained missing.

“Five or six days after [the earthquake] they were losing hope and they saw the government of Turkey giving up and they were getting so upset,” Beer explained. “We had a situation where guns were pulled – not because they wanted to hurt us, but they were threatening us that if we don’t help them they’re going to do something.”

Beer said despite the threats and difficulties that come with the job, the life-saving work that United Hatzalah does is what pushes him to keep going and growing the organization further.

The father-of-five had his own near-death experience in March 2020 when he was diagnosed with coronavirus and put into an induced coma and then intubated — twice. He was hospitalized for a month and told The Algemeiner that his battle with COVID-19 gave him the push he needed to keep moving forward with United Hatzalah.

“I almost died and said goodbye to everyone,” he said. “I got charged up after what I went through and I said I’m gonna continue for another 50 years.”

He then added: “After I’m 100, I’m gonna retire and just sit on the beach.”