The Extractor
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
***Contains descriptions of scenes which some may find upsetting*** Hilik Magnus is Israel’s foremost search and rescue specialist. He has performed missions, public and private, for over 30 years across six continents. He has worked under the radar during disasters such as 2004’s tsunami and 2008’s Mumbai attacks. He has worked with everyone, from grieving families to cartels and the Taliban, all for the simple purpose of returning people to where they belong. The start, in the 1990s, was simple. His operating base was an abandoned train carriage in the southern desert of Israel with three telephones and a dial-up connection. Hilik did not know what awaited him. All he knew was that he felt a ‘shlichut’ – ‘higher purpose’ in Hebrew – to help save lives, to return the unburied to their grieving families. Now, he opens up about this secretive world, and talks frankly about his origins and values.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | This is the documentary from the BBC World Service. My name's Jeremy Newmark Jones, and |
| 0:13.0 | unusually, this programme is about just one man and his extraordinary work. |
| 0:18.5 | This episode of the documentary contains some descriptions you may find upsetting. |
| 0:23.9 | The Negev Desert in southern Israel. |
| 0:27.6 | It's dusk. |
| 0:29.3 | A thin figure approaches, wiery, wearing outdoor gear. |
| 0:34.7 | Hello! |
| 0:35.7 | A bald head and a grey beard that reaches below the neckline. |
| 0:40.8 | Body head. A bulldog bounds up. |
| 0:43.8 | Here he's coming, you see. He's playing with the microphone. He was born on the day of the birth of Jesus Christ. So he's a holy dog. |
| 0:53.3 | This man is a search and rescue specialist from Israel. |
| 0:57.2 | Its bestial path never crosses with his, |
| 0:59.5 | but if you find yourself in a moment of crisis and your life is threatened, |
| 1:03.8 | you want him alongside you. |
| 1:06.0 | We conducted some of the most extreme operation all over the world. |
| 1:11.6 | We did search and rescue in jungles, rivers, sea, |
| 1:15.6 | and we did a lot of operations in the most extreme situation in the world, |
| 1:21.6 | in the Mekong River several times, in the Kalikandaki in Nepal, |
| 1:25.6 | in the Amazonas, in the Tuichi. Just call it when we have been there. |
| 1:33.4 | He's a man who rarely talks to the media. He shuns the spotlight and yet over the years, |
| 1:39.6 | he's been at the center of numerous world events. Kidnappings, natural disasters. His job is simple. |
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