Gunshots and a sister trapped behind a door she couldn’t open, this is how Meitar Zamir Zylberberg’s October 7 began. The Magen David Adom paramedic didn’t wait for instructions. She ran toward the danger, guided by training, instinct, and a sense of duty. Speaking at the Women Leaders Summit 2026, Zylberberg recounted a day when fear and heroism collided in ways she had never imagined.
Zylberberg, a decade-long MDA veteran, described how, in the early hours of October 7, she made a split-second decision to head into chaos. “I knew I just couldn't stay at home,” she said. “If I couldn't help my sister, at least I will try to help other people.” Her sister was trapped in Kibbutz Kfar Aza as the attack unfolded. “She told me she can hear gunshots outside her home,” Zylberberg recalled. At the same time, reports and videos of terrorists in nearby areas made clear the scale of the unfolding crisis. When her husband, also a paramedic, alerted her to mass casualties along Route 25, she didn’t hesitate. “I just ran. This is my job.”
Arriving at the scene with only her personal equipment, she helped establish an improvised field treatment point amid what she described as “chaos.” Despite the danger, she remained focused on saving lives. “When I treated other people, they needed me to stay in focus 100%,” she said. “So they saved me, because these were the only times I didn’t worry about my sister.”
That worry, however, never left her. Throughout the day, the two communicated only by text. “I didn’t know if my sister is still alive. I didn’t know if I still had a family,” she said. “I freaked out.” Relief came hours later when her sister was rescued. But the toll of the day deepened when Zylberberg learned that her childhood home had been overrun. “They told me the house that I grew up in was completely destroyed,” she said. Despite the trauma, Zylberberg continues her work. “This is my profession. This is what I chose."
Written in collaboration with MDA