“We Are All Heart and All Action”: The Story of a ZAKA Volunteer Who Can’t Forget

The grass was still green. The flowers continued to bloom in the yard. From the outside, the house in southern Israel looked like any other — untouched, peaceful, quiet. But inside, everything was different. A fridge beeped softly with its door left open. A baby’s blanket still lay folded in its crib. The ceiling fan turned slowly overhead, stirring the silence. The television screen blinked with no one watching.

This is what ZAKA volunteer Nurith Cohn saw when she entered that house just days after the horrific October 7 terrorist attacks.

“There was this terrible contrast,” Nurith recalled. “On one hand, it was beautiful outside. On the other, you walked into a nightmare.”

For two and a half months, Nurith worked in the aftermath of devastation. She entered house after house, room after room, bearing witness to stories left untold — stories etched in shattered furniture, blood-stained walls, and bullet-ridden doors.

“Every home told a story, even if the people were no longer there,” she said. “You didn’t need to see the family. You could feel what had happened. You could see it.”

In one home, Nurith and her fellow volunteers found a hole in the ground where terrorists had thrown a grenade. Shrapnel had torn through walls, furniture, and even the fridge. In the living room, a pool of blood still stained the floor. In the safe room, the door was riddled with holes — signs of a desperate last stand. A parent had tried to shield their children. On the other side, a hand had clutched the handle so tightly that even in its absence, its imprint remained. Blood seeped through one of the bullet holes.

Inside that safe room, a baby’s crib. A blanket was still folded. A bunk bed in the corner. Small shoes by the wall. “You’re walking into this sacred space,” Nurith said. “It felt like you weren’t supposed to be there, like you were intruding into a moment frozen in horror.” She remembers the knife she found, the bullets, the silence. And she remembers how she didn’t cry. Not then.

“There was no time to cry,” she said. “We had to keep going. We had to function. We had to help.”

ZAKA volunteers are trained to serve with strength and composure. They locate and identify victims. They provide dignity in death. They do the sacred work no one else can bear to do. But even the strongest hearts can carry only so much before they begin to break.

“It took me five months before the first tears came,” Nurith admits. “Before I even realized I was traumatized.”

Since October 7, everything in Nurith’s life has changed. She sleeps less. She’s constantly alert. Her brain is always asking: Am I okay? Is this a sign of stress? Is my blood pressure rising? Is my heart racing?

“I see everything now through the lens of that day,” she said. “I’ll be walking through a garden and suddenly I’m back there. I see something small — a toy, a blanket, a flower — and it pulls me straight back to the South.”

At night, she checks her WhatsApp groups. It’s 2 or 3 a.m., and she sees the others — fellow ZAKA volunteers — also online. Awake. Quiet. There’s no need to ask why. “We all know. We don’t even have to say it.”

ZAKA volunteers were among the first to enter these devastated communities. They gave everything — their time, their strength, their emotional stability — to bring order to the aftermath of horror. But while their service was heroic, their wounds are largely invisible. And untreated.

“At first, none of us understood what we had gone through,” Nurith said.

“We’re used to seeing difficult things. But this… this was different. It was beyond anything.” Now, as they try to return to daily life, many ZAKA volunteers are confronting the long tail of trauma. Flashbacks. Anxiety. Sleepless nights. Emotional numbing. An overwhelming sense of grief.

“And the hardest part?” Nurith says, voice steady but weary. “We don’t all have access to the help we need. Therapy, trauma care — it’s expensive. It’s not always available.”

That’s why ZAKA is launching the Healing and Resilience Unit — a critical new initiative dedicated to supporting the psychological well-being of ZAKA volunteers and their families. Through the support of the Israel Magen Fund of Canada, this initiative will:

• Provide emotional first aid immediately following traumatic missions

• Offer access to therapists trained in trauma and PTSD, including innovative tools like VR-assisted therapy

• Run group support sessions and structured resilience workshops

• Support spouses and children affected by secondary trauma

• Ensure long-term monitoring and recovery care

“This help is not optional,” Nurith said. “It’s not something we might need. We do need it. And we need it now.”

ZAKA volunteers are the first to show up in the worst of times — and often the last to leave. They do not ask for recognition. They do not seek praise. They serve because they believe in the value of every life and the dignity of every soul.

But even heroes need help.

“We, as ZAKA volunteers, are all heart and all action,” Nurith says. “But now… we need the world not to forget us.”

Her words are a quiet call for compassion. Not urgency, not desperation — but recognition. A reminder that healing is not automatic. Those who give so much must be given something in return.

Through IMFoC’s support of the ZAKA Healing and Resilience Unit, Canadians can be part of this healing. Your contribution doesn’t go to a vague cause. It funds therapy sessions. It funds trauma care. It makes sure someone like Nurith — who held the weight of a nation’s grief — doesn’t have to carry her pain alone. Because when the world turned away, they walked in. Now, it’s our turn to stand beside them — in healing, in honour, and in hope.