Yossi Landau, one of the founders of ZAKA, Israel’s volunteer emergency response and recovery organization, still remembers vividly the hours he spent trapped under the rubble of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
Landau, who was in New York with his family at the time, said he rushed to the Twin Towers after receiving an emergency call while in Brooklyn. Alongside his brother, uncle and cousin, he drove toward Manhattan, arriving just in time to see the second plane strike.
24 years since 9/11 - a conversation with Yossi Landau, one of the founders of ZAKA
(Video: Tomer Shunem Halevi, Ori Davidovich)
“At first we thought it was an accident,” Landau told Ynet in an interview marking the 24th anniversary of the attacks. “Then we realized it was a terror attack. While everyone ran away, we ran in.”
Working with New York’s Hatzalah volunteer ambulance service and ZAKA, Landau entered the towers to help evacuate people. Fire officials soon ordered rescuers out of the buildings to account for personnel. Moments later, he heard what sounded like a bomb.
“We started to run. I saw black smoke chasing us,” Landau said. “I saw a woman thrown against a building. Then we were covered by rubble and silence. I couldn’t breathe. I thought I was going to die.”
Buried for seven hours, Landau and a colleague clawed their way out with their hands before being taken to a hospital. “I asked my partner, if he gets out, to tell my family I love them and to make sure I would have a proper burial,” he recalled. “He told me, you pray and I’ll work.”
Now based in Israel, Landau said the trauma remains. “Whenever I go back, I look up and ask myself, did this really happen? It never leaves you,” he said.
As ZAKA’s commander in southern Israel, Landau was also among the first responders to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. He said the scenes reminded him of 9/11.
“When I looked into the eyes of the civilians, I thought, here we go again,” he said.
Asked whether the two events can be compared, Landau said they were both turning points. “Yes, because it’s the same people who tried to destroy the United States and its allies, Israel,” he said. “And no, because on Oct. 7 they came into homes, they burned, raped and killed civilians in their beds. The feeling is the same, but the methods are different. They have become more sophisticated.”
Landau ended with a simple wish: “We should never have it again. We should always live in peace. And our hostages should come home — that is our daily prayer.”