“We live so close to each other”

“We live so close to each other”

The massacres of October 7, 2023 were a shock for Isabelle Bar Ilan, a Franco-Israeli retiree. Six volunteers from The Path to Healing, an association where she has been active for several years, were even killed that day. Since 2010, the organization’s approximately 1,300 members have provided daily transport for Palestinians requiring medical treatment. Today, if they can no longer take the Palestinians from Gaza, their commitment has not weakened. “After seeing these horrors, it took me several weeks to come to terms with it… But I came back,” says the septuagenarian.

One Sunday a month, she leaves her still-sleeping village in the Galilee in the rearview mirror, heading for the West Bank. An hour later, this former doctor picked up two patients accompanied by a relative at the control post of this territory on economic and medical perfusion. She then takes them to an Israeli hospital. Among his “regulars”, an 11-year-old boy on dialysis. “My kids say I’m crazy!” They don’t trust the Palestinian population,” she confides. Her husband doesn’t necessarily approve of her approach either, even if he happily lends her his large car when she has to transport people in wheelchairs.

Isabelle Bar Ilan draws her will and courage from the humanist values ​​instilled by her parents. “I understood that the Palestinians also suffered from Hamas. We live so close to each other that there should be no reason for us not to get along…”, this practicing Jew continues to hope. With her passengers, she plays music, a source of connection, rather than talking about the conflict. Since October 7, 850 Palestinians have been treated thanks to these transports.

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