The phone call at the crack of dawn made by the boy he had taken to Supernova festival and was to pick up the next day, the crazy drive under the barrage of bullets, the thirty people crushed inside his minibus that would have seated 14 at most, in a desperate race to safety.

Youssef Ziadna is a 47-year-old Arab-Israeli Bedouin. He lives in a small village in southern Israel, about a quarter of an hour away from Gaza. He works as a minibus driver, transporting people from one part of the area to another on a daily basis.

Since 7th October 2023, the day Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing about 1,400 civilians including men, women and children and taking 250 hostages, his life has changed completely.

According to reports by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Ziadna had driven a group of youngsters to Supernova festival site and agreed to pick them up the next afternoon. But at about 6 a.m., the young man he was in contact with called him, asking him to come back to fetch him and his friends because they heard the sound of sirens and wanted to go back, as he told Panet newspaper in an interview. The man rushed towards the venue of the party, meeting several people on his way , who were heading in the opposite direction, because of the sound of gunshots that had meanwhile begun to tear the air. Despite everyone telling him to turn the vehicle around and go back, he still managed to reach Re'im, the area of the massacre, retrieving the group of youngsters under a hail of bullets and telling them to try and take as many people as possible with them.

Thus, in spite of its 14 seats, Ziadna’s minibus was filled with thirty terrified and wounded people, and then set off at full speed through lesser-known and beaten roads that only his experience as a driver could get him to take so quickly. Other cars loaded with fugitives would follow him, identifying him as a guide to a safe place.

Arriving at an Israeli checkpoint, the police would stop the bus believing it to be a hijacking. Denied by the passengers themselves, who explained the Bedouin’s heroic gesture, the officer directed them to the kibbutz Tze'elim where they remained for a few hours, safe, while the seriously injured were immediately taken to Soroka. He was then able to go back home, where he discovered that four members of his family were missing.

For his courageous act, Ziadna was applauded and celebrated as a hero. But the trauma of that day is still too hard to be processed. What he saw and experienced shocked him deeply.

Despite the fact that institutions and public opinion tend to forget this, Bedouin communities have also been victims of Hamas aggression, along with people of other nationalities.

In an interview with journalist Aline Jaccottet of Le Temps, the man recounted that he had turned to a psychologist after collapsing psychologically. “No one should ever have to see what I saw”.

In addition to the trauma of the events of 7th October, there were death threats, but also several messages of support and appreciation. For him, this is now an opportunity for the State of Israel to commit to protecting and including the Bedouin community, which is often marginalised and neglected, despite being within its borders. Rahat, where Ziadna lives, has 75,000 inhabitants and only 10 public bomb shelters. Seven people were injured in the attack, including a child. His village, in particular, does not even have a shelter for its 1,000 inhabitants, in an area that is constantly crossed by missiles fired from both sides. “We are also part of this nation”, he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “The government has to seriously start taking care of us”.