Tuvia Book: The IDF's oldest combat medic and second-oldest soldier in Gaza

For some, age is just a number. This is particularly true in the case of IDF combat medic Senior Warrant Officer (res.) Tuvia Book. At the age of 55, not only is he the oldest combat medic in Gaza, but he’s also the second-oldest soldier serving there. Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi, four months older than Book, beat him to the top spot.

Nevertheless, age hasn’t prevented Book from carrying out his strenuous and complex duties in the combat medical extraction unit Palmar Asaf 5388 (formed 10 years ago after the 2014 Gaza war) in which he serves. Together with his comrades, most of whom are significantly younger than him, they are tasked with treating and evacuating wounded soldiers on the front lines in double-quick time.

To find out more about this lifesaving unit and its oldest member, the Magazine met with Book, who shared details about some of its incredible work.

London-born Book served as a lone soldier in the Givati Brigade after graduating from high school in Cardiff, Wales, and spending a gap year in Israel. From the start of his service, he was determined to be a combat medic, a position that he achieved once his Hebrew had improved sufficiently.

Having made aliyah during his military service, Book settled in Israel after the army, putting the medical skills he’d learned to good use in his subsequent job as an ambulance medic with Magen David Adom and during reserve duty, which he carried out until the age of 40.

Book also turned his attention to another passion of his – Israel education, with a focus on Zionism and Jewish history, earning a doctorate in the subject. He has authored and illustrated several internationally acclaimed books, including the Jewish Journeys history series, and is a much sought-after lecturer on the global Jewish circuit.Book is also a licensed educational tour guide, introducing people of all ages to his homeland, although in recent months this type of work has largely dried up, he said.

Aside from tours of the Oct. 7 sites where Hamas massacres took place, tourists – of whom there are very few – and natives alike aren’t interested in visiting historical sites such as Masada, he lamented.

While this is galling for him and his fellow tour guides, with reserve duty taking up most of his time since the war started, Book hasn’t had much time for work. Just the odd week here and there when he’s been given leave from the army.

Indeed, when we spoke, his week-long break was coming to an end, and he was preparing to return to his base on the Gaza border, his home for the past eight and a half months.

ALTHOUGH BOOK was keen to serve from the moment news of the atrocities came to light on that Shabbat morning, his call-up wasn’t straightforward, as he was past the age for reserve duty, 40. Unlike other reservists who received emergency call-up notices and duly reported for service, he had to “fight to fight,” he quipped.

Going by a rumor that “a base in the Negev was looking for paramedics,” Book dug out his old uniform, dusted it off, and tried it on. Although he’d not worn it since 2006, when he served as a combat medic in the Second Lebanon War, “It still fits!” he exclaimed in disbelief.

He went to the base, which, as luck would have it, was next to the Givati base where he had served over 30 years ago, so he was familiar with the area.

As expected, the base was heavily guarded when he arrived, so entering without his call-up papers was a challenge. Once inside, Book spent two hours trying to “sell himself” to different combat medical units. Eventually, the deputy commander of Palmar Asaf, having been worn down by his relentless campaign to serve, told him to speak to someone in the human resources office.

Here, he met with more resistance. Having not been in the system for 15 years, he was told, “Go home, and we’ll call you.” It took two more days of perseverance on Book’s part – during which he refused to leave – before he was finally redrafted.

“It took two days of driving them mental before they agreed to let me serve,” he joked, adding: “On October 10, I was given a weapon and went to join my unit already on the Gaza border.”

The work of a medic

WHEN SOLDIERS are wounded on the front lines, immediate first aid is provided by an embedded combat medic who serves alongside them, while the combat medical extraction unit is alerted, and the soldier is removed from the battlefront in a medical extraction vehicle.

“It’s all about speed,” Book explained.

His unit, based in tents on the Gaza border, then swings into action. The unit members travel in a convoy of armored vehicles, including ambulances and Humvees, to meet the team transporting the wounded soldier from the battlefront. Once the soldier has been transferred into their care, the area is sealed off and made as safe as possible while treatment continues, and arrangements are made for his immediate transfer to a hospital.

These arrangements are decided on a case-by-case basis. The most severely wounded are medevaced to the hospital by Blackhawk helicopters of Unit 669, under the protective cover of Apache helicopters. Those with less serious wounds are driven by ambulance.

From the moment the soldier is transferred into the care of the extraction unit, treatment is given, often lifesaving.

“In the field, we need to be the door to the hospital,” Book stressed.

Unlike in other armies, the IDF Medical Corps carries fresh supplies of blood, which has undoubtedly saved multiple lives and aided recovery. Its members also carry scanning equipment with them, should an ultrasound scan be required urgently to locate the source of internal bleeding.

The different units charged with evacuating wounded soldiers work in tandem, monitoring each other’s movements through digital iPads, which makes their jobs easier.

“Since the war began, 2,200 soldiers have been evacuated from the front lines by units like ours,” Book confirmed, adding that, of those, 350 were medevaced by helicopter. Despite the alarmingly high number of serious casualties, 326 soldiers have been killed in action to date – a relatively low number under the circumstances.

While every fallen soldier is a tragedy, Book asserted that had it not been for the unprecedented and speedy medical assistance provided, “many more would have died.”

NOT ALL injuries are sustained in combat. Heatstroke, accidents in the field, and mental health issues account for some of the casualties.

Despite the cause of the injury, however, each soldier is treated in the same efficient manner. One man, for example, who was suffering from severe heatstroke, would almost certainly have died were it not for the treatment he received on the spot and subsequent helicopter evacuation.

When Book and his team are called out, the adrenaline kicks in immediately, he stated. Although they are sometimes met with “screaming and shouting and chaos... we have to stay focused and compartmentalized,” he stressed.

The first thing the extraction team does when it arrives on the scene is cut off the soldier’s clothes to check for any hidden wounds or bleeding. When a soldier has been severely wounded, the team stabilizes him enough to get him to the helicopter. Only as a last resort, where a soldier’s life hangs in the balance, will a doctor operate in the field.

When soldiers are evacuated, the first question most ask is “When can I go back?” Not wanting to demoralize them, Book never gives a direct answer but instead encourages them to call their parents. As a father of four, he knows how frantic their parents will be when they receive a call from the army, and he wants to save them from that trauma. “I want parents not to suffer; just hearing their child’s voice is reassuring,” he explained.

Almost all soldiers say they’d rather call their dads and play down their wounds when they speak to them.

“From that moment on, life stops for those parents. They drop everything and race to the hospital,” Book said.

TRANSPORTING WOUNDED soldiers to the hospital isn’t always sad and stressful, he confirmed, recounting one story where his team and their patient arrived by ambulance at Soroka Medical Center, all singing along to a song by Idan Amedi (who had been wounded in Gaza in January and medevaced by Book’s unit). The soldier, who had sustained a bullet wound in his arm and shrapnel wounds down his back, had asked to listen to music and started singing along, while everyone else joined in at his behest. “The atmosphere was pretty chill,” Book said.

When they arrived at the hospital, the soldier, who by this time was high on morphine, asked if they could keep going: “This is awesome; can we drive around the block again?” he asked.

On another occasion, a wounded soldier from Oketz (the IDF’s canine unit) was transported by ambulance to the hospital along with his dog. The dog, who climbed aboard wearing his flak jacket, doggy vest, and paw protectors, remained by his soldier’s side in the ambulance. When they entered the hospital, a staff member told them that dogs aren’t allowed. “Everyone laughed in disbelief,” Book said, confirming that the dog stayed with his master, who refused treatment until his four-legged friend had been given water to drink. “The bond between the soldiers and their dogs is remarkable,” he observed.

While for security reasons, Book couldn’t divulge certain information about his unit, he was keen to recount stories about some of his extraordinary comrades (25% of whom are women).

Dr. J, for example, who was working in the UK at the time of the Hamas attack, dropped everything to come back and join the unit, even though his wife was suffering from stage 4 breast cancer, and they have three young children. Rather than object to her husband leaving her alone to hold the fort while he was away for months, she encouraged him to go. “You should go, as you can save lives,” she urged.

Another selfless reservist who joined the unit as a paramedic when the war broke out, despite having donated a kidney just a few weeks before, was Gabi, a father of six.

Other comrades come from all walks of life, Book said, and include Druze and Christians. While Book is the oldest by some margin, reservists of all ages have served alongside him, some barely out of their regular army service, and others midway through university. Without exception, all dropped what they were doing to serve their country when the war broke out.

BOOK’S UNIT has encountered significant problems since it was reformed in October – a lack of protective equipment being the main one. With helmets from the 1970s providing little to no protection, among other things, it was hard to get anyone to take them seriously, despite the levels of expertise that they offered. “At the beginning, we’d arrive looking like we’d come from a Wild West movie,” he jested.

They soon came to realize that it wasn’t very funny at all.

With a lack of equipment such as ceramic vests and bulletproof helmets, there was a strong chance that the “doctors and medics would be killed trying to save lives because they weren’t properly equipped,” he said candidly. Consequently, he immediately set about raising funds through his guiding clients to make sure his unit was properly equipped with the most advanced protective gear.

“Many of my guiding clients have generously helped to provide lifesaving equipment for my unit by donating to the One People Israel fund,” he enthused. “The Michael Levin [Lone Soldier] Foundation and The Michael Levin Base have also provided much-needed gear.”

To date, Book has raised $200,000 for equipment, earning him the nicknames “Santa Claus” and “Saba Tuvia” among his comrades.

Although there are some indications that the war in Gaza may be coming to an end, Book has no intentions of slowing down, until he and his unit are no longer needed.

As this avid Liverpool Football Club fan asserted, “As long as soldiers’ lives are in danger, we’ll be there for them.” The Liverpool FC anthem, “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” is more important to him now than ever before. 

For more information: www.booktuvia.com. 

To donate essential equipment to Book’s unit Palmar Asaf, visit www.onepeopleisrael.org.