The white van was aching to fall apart as it sped down the highway from the Shomron towards the border with the undisputed portion of Israel.The man in the passenger seat was unsure of whether to laugh or scream in terror. At one hundred and twenty kilometers per hour, the panels vibrated noisily and the occasional back-firing of the over-stressed diesel engine sounded like they had hit a landmine.
The driver was a surly Haredi in his late teens who reminded the medic of a troll from a fairy tale. Sandwiched between them was a young religious boy who seemed allergic to his kippah — he kept removing it and placing it on the dash, then replacing it and removing it again.
These were not normal people, of course. They were the pride of Jerusalem’s canine search and rescue service, volunteer firefighters from Jerusalem traveling to the Tel Aviv area to search for a Jewish man who had gone missing two weeks earlier. Joseph, the medic, had travelled down by bus from the north of Israel to volunteer in the efforts. The call had been put out online internationally, and he was the only one who had responded, and the only medically trained person on the team. On his lap, he clutched an old ski patrol fanny pack filled with rescue equipment.
He had known something outside of his experience was happening when the rescue personnel had arrived with no equipment beyond dogs and cans of tuna fish and humus. When the fire...
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