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This Bedouin bus driver is credited with saving 30 people from the outdoor party massacre
(JTA) — Every day at 4 p.m., Youssef Ziadna receives a phone call from a psychologist. Every evening, he sits on his balcony drinking coffee, smoking, and replaying in his mind the worst things he has ever seen.
The daily routine would have been unimaginable for Ziadna, a 47-year-old Bedouin Israeli resident of Rahat, just two weeks ago. A minibus driver, he filled his days ferrying passengers around Israel’s southern region.
But on Oct. 7, he was called to pick up one of his regular customers and raced headlong in Hamas’ brutal attack on Israel. He ended up rescuing 30 people, all Jewish Israelis, from the massacre at the outdoor party near Israel’s southern border, dodging bullets and veering off-road to bring them to safety.
“I would never wish on anyone to see what I saw,” Ziadna told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “This is trauma for my whole life. When I sit alone and recollect, I can’t help the tears.”
Ziadna has joined an emerging pantheon of heroes who were able to carry out daring feats of rescue during a chaotic, dangerous and bloody attack in which thousands of Israelis were killed, wounded or taken captive. One of the people he saved posted about him on social media shortly afterwards.
Ziadna is “a larger-than-life man to whom we will forever be indebted,” Amit Hadar wrote in Hebrew in a post that was shared widely starting on Oct. 7. “When, with God’s help, we reach better days, save the number for the next time you need a ride — if anyone deserves it, this person does.”
Yet at the same time, Ziadna is grieving a cousin who was murdered during the attack and worrying about four other family members who remain missing. He also received a threat from someone who claimed to be affiliated with Hamas, vowing retaliation for Ziadna’s efforts to save Jews after they were recounted in a local newspaper. And he is concerned that his fellow Bedouins, a minority that remains marginalized in many ways within Israeli society, are at risk given the lack of bomb shelters in Rahat.
The stress of it all has already sent him to the emergency room with chest pains — but he is determined to press on.
“When I think about it, I ask how did we get out of there,” Ziadna recalled Monday, 10 days after the massacre. “I guess it’s fate that we’re meant to live longer in this world.”
Ziadna started Oct. 7 early, driving Hadar and eight of his friends from the town of Omer to the rave at Kibbutz Re’im at 1 a.m. He left with the instruction to pick them up the following day at 3 p.m.
But at 6 a.m. he received a call for help from Hadar. Believing that the call for help was due to a code red for incoming rockets fired from Gaza, Ziadna raced to his bus.
“I didn’t wash my face, I didn’t even get dressed,” Ziadna said. “This is standard over here in the south.”
A dead body on the grounds of the Tribe of Nova music festival after the Oct. 7, 2023, deadly attack by Hamas. (Ilia Yefimovich/picture alliance via Getty Images)
But as soon as he reached the Sa’ad junction, a mile away from Kfar Aza, one of the Gaza border communities that experienced some of the worst horrors of the Oct. 7 massacre, a new picture began to emerge. A man who had escaped from the party ran towards him, furiously signaling to Ziadna to make a U-turn. Ziadna, not comprehending, exited the minibus to speak to him. Moments later, Ziadna, the man and a woman who accompanied him were caught in gunfire.
“Bullets were flying everywhere,” Ziadna said, adding that the three dived into a ditch on the side of the road. He said, “I raised my head and the guy told me, ‘Why are you doing that? You’ll get a bullet in your brain!’”
Ziadna told the disbelieving couple that he would continue on to the site of the party. “I stared death in the face,” he said. “But I knew I couldn’t give up on my missions. I will go and rescue them.”
Navigating through bullet fire, Ziadna managed to reach his passengers at the scene of the party in Re’im where an inferno of bodies, blood and bullets reigned. “I told them to bring as many as possible,” he said. Twenty-four additional people crammed into the 14-seater vehicle, and on the way, they rescued another couple, one of whom had been shot in the leg. Ziadna says he also caught sight of a motorized Hamas paraglider hovering above, spraying bullets with a machine gun at revelers.
Under constant gunfire, the minibus sped away. Ziadna’s intimate knowledge of the terrain proved lifesaving, and he was able to cut a route through dirt roads, avoiding the main thoroughfare where terrorists were ambushing escapees. Many other cars took his lead and followed the minibus, he said.
Cries of terror and anguish filled his minibus as its occupants nursed their wounds and tried desperately to call loved ones amid jammed cellular signals. They arrived at a roadblock manned by police. Saying there was no way of getting to the hospital to treat the wounded woman because the route was overrun with terrorists, an officer directed them to a nearby kibbutz, Tze’elim, where they remained until the late afternoon when the Home Front Command finally said it was safe to leave.
Hadar confirmed Ziadna’s account but declined to speak further to JTA.
Four hundred people from the party took refuge in the kibbutz and, according to Ziadna, were looked after well. “They gave us everything we needed, food, chargers and even cigarettes,” he said.
A member of the Bedouin community stands next to vehicles destroyed by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip in the village of Arara in the Negev Desert, Oct. 14, 2023. (Yuri Cortez/AFP via Getty Images)
Finally, Ziadna made it back to Rahat where his home, like the overwhelming majority in the city, has no reinforced safe room. Home to 75,000 Bedouins, Rahat has only 10 public bomb shelters — a fact that its mayor, Ata Abu-Madighem, has lamented for years. On Tuesday, Abu-Madighem filed a request for 60 mobile shelters.
According to Abu-Madighem, who met with Ziadna to thank him several days after the attack together with representatives from the army and the police, three Rahat residents were killed on Oct. 7, two of whom were the mayor’s relatives. One was Ziadna’s: Abed Ruhman was murdered by Hamas terrorists while sleeping in a tent on Zikim beach, Ziadna said.
Seven people from Rahat were wounded, including a second-grader who was shot in the chest. A further five are reported missing, four from the Ziadna family, Abu-Madighem said. (The hundreds of known hostages in Gaza include Bedouins, and Hamas has also been holding an Israeli Bedouin, Hisham al-Sayed, captive since 2015, when he wandered by foot into Gaza.)
The biggest risk, the mayor said, is to those who live in unrecognized tent villages in the region, which have no protection at all from projectiles.
“The state must make a mental switch and start respecting the Bedouin community. It’s also foolish to continue to refuse to plug into the massive manpower we have here,” he told JTA.
Ziadna hopes his actions will prompt greater appreciation and support for the Bedouin community. “After this, the government needs to do a better job of looking after us because we’re also part of this nation,” he said. “We are one people — we are Israelis. We live here together and we need to go hand in hand.”
For now, he is seeking to bolster his mental health and to put aside concerns about the death threat he received. “He told me, ‘You saved 30 Jews’ lives. I’m from Gaza but don’t worry, we’ll get to you,’” Ziadna recounted.
Abu-Madighem confirmed the call to JTA and Ziadna said the Israel Police are investigating its source; police spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment. Other Israeli Arabs who have gained public attention for helping Jewish victims of the attack have faced retribution alongside plaudits.
More substantial than the threats, Ziadna said, have been an overwhelming number of messages of support, which he said have come from all over the world. He made a public appearance alongside Yair Golan, a retired general and former lawmaker who engaged in feats of rescue of his own. He has also been invited by Israel’s embassy in Dubai to tell his story to an Emirati audience.
There, he will share a story that could easily have ended in tragedy.
“I had an option to go back. A weaker man may have done a U-turn at that junction,” Ziadna said. “But I said no way, I will throw myself at death if it means I can save lives.”
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Trump Says Iran Must Give Up Dream of Nuclear Weapon or Face Harsh Response
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
President Donald Trump said on Monday he believes Iran is intentionally delaying a nuclear deal with the United States and that it must abandon any drive for a nuclear weapon or face a possible military strike on Tehran’s atomic facilities.
“I think they’re tapping us along,” Trump told reporters after US special envoy Steve Witkoff met in Oman on Saturday with a senior Iranian official.
Both Iran and the United States said on Saturday that they held “positive” and “constructive” talks in Oman. A second round is scheduled for Saturday, and a source briefed on the planning said the meeting was likely to be held in Rome.
The source, speaking to Reuters on the condition of anonymity, said the discussions are aimed at exploring what is possible, including a broad framework of what a potential deal would look like.
“Iran has to get rid of the concept of a nuclear weapon. They cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.
Asked if US options for a response include a military strike on Tehran’s nuclear facilities, Trump said: “Of course it does.”
Trump said the Iranians need to move fast to avoid a harsh response because “they’re fairly close” to developing a nuclear weapon.
The US and Iran held indirect talks during former President Joe Biden’s term but they made little, if any progress. The last known direct negotiations between the two governments were under then-President Barack Obama, who spearheaded the 2015 international nuclear deal that Trump later abandoned.
The post Trump Says Iran Must Give Up Dream of Nuclear Weapon or Face Harsh Response first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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No Breakthrough in Gaza Talks, Egyptian and Palestinian Sources Say
Families and supporters of Israeli hostages kidnapped during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas gather to demand a deal that will bring back all the hostages held in Gaza, outside a meeting between hostage representatives and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Jerusalem, Jan. 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
The latest round of talks in Cairo to restore the defunct Gaza ceasefire and free Israeli hostages ended with no apparent breakthrough, Palestinian and Egyptian sources said on Monday.
The sources said Hamas had stuck to its position that any agreement must lead to an end to the war in Gaza.
Israel, which restarted its military campaign in Gaza last month after a ceasefire agreed in January unraveled, has said it will not end the war until Hamas is stamped out. The terrorist group has ruled out any proposal that it lay down its arms.
But despite that fundamental disagreement, the sources said a Hamas delegation led by the group’s Gaza Chief Khalil Al-Hayya had shown some flexibility over how many hostages it could free in return for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel should a truce be extended.
An Egyptian source told Reuters the latest proposal to extend the truce would see Hamas free an increased number of hostages. Israeli minister Zeev Elkin, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet, told Army Radio on Monday that Israel was seeking the release of around 10 hostages, raised from previous Hamas consent to free five.
Hamas has asked for more time to respond to the latest proposal, the Egyptian source said.
“Hamas has no problem, but it wants guarantees Israel agrees to begin the talks on the second phase of the ceasefire agreement” leading to an end to the war, the Egyptian source said.
AIRSTRIKES
Hamas terrorists freed 33 Israeli hostages in return for hundreds of Palestinian detainees during the six-week first phase of the ceasefire which began in January. But the second phase, which was meant to begin at the start of March and lead to the end of the war, was never launched.
Meanwhile, 59 Israeli hostages remain in the hands of the terrorists. Israel believes up to 24 of them are alive.
Palestinians say the wave of Israeli attacks since the collapse of the ceasefire has been among the deadliest and most intense of the war, hitting an exhausted population surviving in the enclave’s ruins.
In Jabalia, a community on Gaza’s northern edge, rescue workers in orange vests were trying to smash through concrete with a sledgehammer to recover bodies buried underneath a building that collapsed in an Israeli strike.
Feet and a hand of one person could be seen under a concrete slab. Men carried a body wrapped in a blanket. Workers at the scene said as many as 25 people had been killed.
The Israeli military said it had struck there against terrorists planning an ambush.
In Khan Younis in the south, a camp of makeshift tents had been shredded into piles of debris by an airstrike. Families had returned to poke through the rubbish in search of belongings.
“We used to live in houses. They were destroyed. Now, our tents have been destroyed too. We don’t know where to stay,” said Ismail al-Raqab, who returned to the area after his family fled the raid before dawn.
EGYPT’S SISI MEETS QATARI EMIR
The leaders of the two Arab countries that have led the ceasefire mediation efforts, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, met in Doha on Sunday. The Egyptian source said Sisi had called for additional international guarantees for a truce agreement, beyond those provided by Egypt and Qatar themselves.
US President Donald Trump, who has backed Israel’s decision to resume its campaign and called for the Palestinian population of Gaza to leave the territory, said last week that progress was being made in returning the hostages.
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Iranian Foreign Minister to Visit Moscow Ahead of Second Iran-US Meeting
FILE PHOTO: Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi speaks as he meets with his Iraqi counterpart Fuad Hussein, in Baghdad, Iraq October 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ahmed Saad/File Photo
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi will visit Russia this week ahead of a planned second round of talks between Tehran and Washington aimed at resolving Iran’s decades-long nuclear stand-off with the West.
Araqchi and US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff held talks in Oman on Saturday, during which Omani envoy Badr al-Busaidi shuttled between the two delegations sitting in different rooms at his palace in Muscat.
Both sides described the talks in Oman as “positive,” although a senior Iranian official told Reuters the meeting “was only aimed at setting the terms of possible future negotiations.”
Italian news agency ANSA reported that Italy had agreed to host the talks’ second round, and Iraq’s state news agency said Araqchi told his Iraqi counterpart that talks would be held “soon” in the Italian capital under Omani mediation.
Tehran has approached the talks warily, doubting the likelihood of an agreement and suspicious of Trump, who has threatened to bomb Iran if there is no deal.
Washington aims to halt Tehran’s sensitive uranium enrichment work – regarded by the United States, Israel and European powers as a path to nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is solely for civilian energy production.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Araqchi will “discuss the latest developments related to the Muscat talks” with Russian officials.
Moscow, a party to Iran’s 2015 nuclear pact, has supported Tehran’s right to have a civilian nuclear program.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on vital state matters, distrusts the United States, and Trump in particular.
But Khamenei has been forced to engage with Washington in search of a nuclear deal due to fears that public anger at home over economic hardship could erupt into mass protests and endanger the existence of the clerical establishment, four Iranian officials told Reuters in March.
Tehran’s concerns were exacerbated by Trump’s speedy revival of his “maximum pressure” campaign when he returned to the White House in January.
During his first term, Trump ditched Tehran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six world powers in 2018 and reimposed crippling sanctions on the Islamic regime.
Since 2019, Iran has far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on uranium enrichment, producing stocks at a high level of fissile purity, well above what Western powers say is justifiable for a civilian energy program and close to that required for nuclear warheads.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has raised the alarm regarding Iran’s growing stock of 60% enriched uranium, and reported no real progress on resolving long-running issues, including the unexplained presence of uranium traces at undeclared sites.
IAEA head Rafael Grossi will visit Tehran on Wednesday, Iranian media reported, in an attempt to narrow gaps between Tehran and the agency over unresolved issues.
“Continued engagement and cooperation with the agency is essential at a time when diplomatic solutions are urgently needed,” Grossi said on X on Monday.
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