‘They murdered my parents, we need help’ – Israeli call centers inundated with half a million emergency calls since Hamas invasion

Operators overwhelmed by flood of emergency calls during Hamas invasion – including calls from the dying who wished to leave messages for their families.

By World Israel News Staff

Israeli police telephone operators and dispatch centers around the country were overwhelmed by a flood of roughly half a million emergency calls since the Gaza invasion of southwestern Israel on October 7th.

According to a report by Israel Hayom Tuesday, thousands of desperate, and in some cases disturbing, calls were received at police dispatch centers, with operators struggling to provide guidance to civilians and even soldiers begging for assistance in the face of a relentless terrorist invasion.

“They killed my mom and dad and I’m home with my six-year-old sister,” a nine-year-old boy from a town near the Gaza frontier told an emergency dispatcher on the morning of October 7th.

In many instances, dispatchers said gunshots could be heard in the background of the calls. Screaming and crying were also heard in many calls – the sounds of death and torture in others.

Too often, dispatchers were forced to deliver crushing news – that the entire Gaza frontier had been overrun, and there were no units available to respond to the desperate pleas for help.

In some cases, however, they were still able to provide life-saving assistance over the phone.

“We received a call from a driver who said there were terrorists nearby,” a police operator told Israel Hayom. “We tried to figure out where she was. We sent her a link which she used to share her location with us. We heard gunshots in the background, but they managed to escape. We directed them to a nearby kibbutz, where they safely stayed in a shelter.”

Some of the calls were particularly heartbreaking, including those made by soldiers who were either mortally wounded or surrounded and certain of their own imminent demise who called to leave final messages for their family and friends.