Illustrative: A United Hatzalah ambulance crewman takes cover during an air raid siren near the Gaza border.

A Muslim doctor volunteering for Israel’s emergency service organization United Hatzalah was held hostage for several hours and shot twice by Hamas terrorists who had infiltrated southern Israel, according to a Hatzalah spokesman.

Tarek Abu Arar was driving to his shift at Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon on Saturday morning when at a  junction near Sderot he came across a person who seemed injured on the side of the road, the spokesman said, sharing Arar’s recounting of what happened.

“Suddenly as I got closer to the car I saw about 50 meters away what looked like an Israeli soldier in uniform. He gestured to me to come to him. As I walked to him and was just 10 meters away, he suddenly shot me in the chest,” Abu Arar said. “I started shouting and praying, convinced that I was about to die. I thought he was a soldier who had mistaken me for a terrorist. Then I heard someone say in Arabic ‘Stop, stop, he is an Arab.’ This is when I understood they were Hamas terrorists.”

Arar recounted that as he looked back, “about 10 additional men in military attire came out from behind the bushes and started interrogating me in Arabic. They asked me questions to check my knowledge of Islam. They had Kalashnikovs and very advanced military equipment and were wearing green uniforms that looked similar to IDF [Israel Defense Forces] uniforms.”

The Hamas terrorists reportedly told Abu Arar: “That’s it we have a hostage, the IDF cannot eliminate us from the air anymore.”

They then began shooting cars passing by the junction with the intent to murder as many civilians as possible, Abu Arar recalled.

“It was horrific,” he said. “This continued for two hours until the army arrived at the scene and there was a shootout between the terrorists and the soldiers, with me in the middle.”

After hours of captivity, a Hamas terrorist shot Abu Arar in the leg from point blank and signaled with his hand that the next bullet would be in his head.

“During this whole time, I was praying for a miracle,” Abu Arar said. “I was convinced that I was about to die.”

Forty-five minutes later, elite Israeli forces arrived at the scene, eliminated the terrorists, and rescued Abu Arar.

“This was the worst experience of my life,” Abu Arar said. “I have dedicated my life to helping others and saving lives, both in my profession as a doctor and my volunteering with United Hatzalah. To be forced to witness the horrible slaughter carried out in front of my eyes was terrible. I have no words to describe it. Just terrible.”

Abu Arar has been a volunteer doctor with United Hatzalah for over a year and is currently recuperating at home after having been released from the hospital. He is one of four United Hatzalah volunteers who were injured in the conflict on Saturday, one of whom, another Muslim volunteer, was providing medical coverage at the music festival where hundreds of Israelis were murdered when he was injured and kidnapped by Hamas. An additional volunteer, Maor Shalom, was killed while trying to save lives after he was called up to duty as part of Israel’s security forces.