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IDF soldiers wounded on Oct. 7, in New York for medical treatment, say support from other injured troops crucial for recovery
(New York Jewish Week) – On Oct. 7, Yonatan Pinto was stationed on the Gaza border near the Israeli communities of Nirim and Nir Oz. At around 7 a.m., as Hamas terrorists launched their surprise attack, Pinto’s tank was hit by a missile, blinding him, spraying him with shrapnel and causing serious burns to his body.
Fellow soldiers from his battalion evacuated Pinto on an armored personnel carrier, but the vehicle hit a mine and stalled, and was then attacked. The assailants fired seven projectiles at the vehicle but were fought off by the troops. Pinto, still unable to see, then ran three kilometers, holding onto a friend’s shoulder for guidance, until he reached safety. He arrived at a hospital at 3:40 p.m.
“I remember everything,” Pinto told the New York Jewish Week on Monday at a gala for Belev Echad, a New York-based nonprofit founded in 2009 that supports wounded IDF soldiers. “An eight-hour journey of trying to survive, trying to escape, all blinded.
“When I got to the hospital bed I started to let go — the adrenaline started dropping and I started feeling a little pain,” he said. “The stress started to go away but it was a relief, a huge relief. I’m saved.”
Pinto, 20, still has a long road ahead. He has undergone a number of surgeries in recent weeks to remove shrapnel and treat his eyes, and he has also started physical therapy. But he remains mostly blind, wearing dark glasses indoors and struggling to navigate using a cane.
Pinto and two other wounded soldiers, Yarden Chamo and Daniel Zaidman, came to the U.S. this week to receive further medical and psychological treatment in the New York area. The men said one of the keys to coping with the attack and its aftermath were the bonds they had formed with other wounded soldiers, both those injured on Oct. 7 and others who had tread the same difficult path before them.
“It really helps me and strengthens me,” said Chamo, who sustained injuries on Oct. 7 to his arms, legs and face, pointing to his friend Zaidman. “He knows what I’m feeling and I know what he’s feeling.” Zaidman was shot in the arm while fighting in the farming community of Netiv Ha’asara on Oct. 7 and took shrapnel to his hand and face.
“We know exactly how to help each other because we experience the same pain,” said Chamo, 21, who is still using a crutch and coping with PTSD.
Belev Echad runs a house with amenities for wounded soldiers in the Tel Aviv suburb of Kiryat Ono, and its activists visit the injured in hospitals, organize medical treatments and provide other services such as martial arts lessons. The group was assisting some 600 veterans before Oct. 7, and has added 500 more to its rolls since the attack, said Belev Echad’s director, Rabbi Uriel Vigler.
While in New York, the three soldiers, who had pink scars still visible on their skin, spoke at the nonprofit’s annual gala to raise funds for the group. Around 1,500 people, most of them Jews, packed into the the swanky Cipriani event space on Wall Street for the event, hearing the soldiers’ stories, pledging funds to the organization and sympathizing with the troops and their families. Some of the funds will go to a hyperbaric pressure chamber used to treat brain injuries, Vigler said. The gala and fundraising efforts surrounding the event raised a total of around $4.3 million. Orthodox singer Yaakov Shwekey performed and actress Swell Ariel Or of Netflix’s “The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem” delivered a speech.
The event was dedicated to Raz Mizrahi, a Border Police trooper whose back was badly wounded when an attacker rammed her with a vehicle in East Jerusalem in 2021. She recovered from her injury after four months of rehabilitation, rejoined her unit, became an officer and completed her service. After her release from the military, she joined the staff of Belev Echad, becoming the keynote speaker at the organization’s New York gala last year and connecting with local Jewish communities. She last visited New York in September.
Mizrahi, 21, was at the Supernova music festival near kibbutz Re’im on Oct. 7. She sought safety in a bomb shelter with two friends as rockets streaked out of Gaza, calling her family from the scene. She was missing after the attack as her panicked family scrambled to find information; her body was identified three days later.
“I sometimes think she’s on a trip and needs to come back. I have so many conversations with her. I think that’s what I miss the most,” her mother, Nirit Mizrahi, said in a video played at the event that brought some in the audience to tears.
“Raz is not an ordinary girl. She has a light in her face,” her mother said in the video, which showed Mizrahi in interviews, at the previous year’s gala, and then showed her funeral.
“She would like us to keep living and keep laughing and not fall into sadness,” her mother said. “If I could tell her something, it would be that I’m proud of her.”
Pinto’s mother, Carmit Pinto, was also struggling with the aftermath of the attack.
“We’ve been through ups and downs. Very optimistic, but still crying. It’s not easy,” she told the New York Jewish Week. “We try to focus on the present and not on the future. To go through the medical stuff and to pray that he’ll see again.”
Pinto took a lighter tone, joking that “I’m a little bit disappointed that my first visit in America or in New York is going to be when I can’t see anything.”
“There are times I remember suddenly, ‘Oh, I can’t see,’” he added. “But then I’m saying to myself, ‘No, don’t think about it, move on.”
Despite his optimism, doctors in Israel said Pinto’s vision may or may not improve, and if it does get better, it’s unclear to what extent he will recover. Pinto’s medical files were translated to English and sent to doctors in New York, who will also assess his condition and offer an opinion on a way forward. Details about the soldiers’ procedures in the United States were kept confidential.
Pinto’s mother also said support from other wounded veterans was a crucial part of his recovery. When Pinto was first released from the hospital, friends, former teachers and others came to visit him, but at other times, he was left alone, unable to read the news or use his phone. He was reluctant at first to leave the house for physical therapy, but found a safe space with others who had gone through, or were going through, similar experiences.
“It’s not just therapy, it’s also and most importantly the people,” his mother said. “The people that know exactly what he’s been through because they’ve been through the same thing. It makes him feel good.”
Pinto said he had connected with other soldiers who were injured in different areas on Oct. 7, and had pieced together the bigger picture of the attack, and his place in the story. “I fit here — it’s not like I need to play pretend. I don’t need to make a fake smile,” he said, adding that soldiers injured in past battles knew the way forward. “These people understand me better than I probably understand myself because they’ve been through the same thing and they already got over most of the things I’m going through right now.”
Chamo, a soldier in the Golani infantry brigade, was stationed on the Gaza border on Oct. 7 when he heard the first “red alert” rocket sirens at 6:30 a.m. He and eight other soldiers were told that terrorists had attacked the nearby kibbutz of Nir Am and headed to the community in an armored personnel carrier.
On their way there, attackers opened fire on the vehicle with Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. During a running battle, one of the soldiers exposed himself to fire back, was shot in his eye, and fell back into the vehicle. Before the soldiers had time to react, an attacker hurled a grenade into the carrier. One of the troopers apologized to the others and jumped onto the explosive. He was killed, but likely saved the lives of the others, who were still wounded by the shrapnel. Chamo continued fighting, gunning down another terrorist, before another grenade exploded next to him, injuring his arms, legs and face. A gas grenade then landed in the vehicle, temporarily blinding them.
“I’m injured, I have one dead, another injured in the vehicle. The soldiers who are with me are in shock,” Chamo told the rapt audience while standing next to his mother, who also accompanied him to New York. “I’m looking death in the eye, but I didn’t give up. I opened the emergency door so the gas could get out. Another terrorist stood in front of me and I eliminated him.”
The terrorists had fortified themselves in the kibbutz by that point, and before going in, Chamo sent a farewell video to his family and close friends. After an hour and a half of fighting, he received medical attention for his wounds and survived. His mother recounted to the audience how she had driven south, through rocket fire, to find her son in an emergency room covered in blood.
Chamo pointed to Shuri Moyal, a Belev Echad staff member at the event who was injured by a rocket propelled grenade blast in Gaza in 2014, as a source of support.
“I met him a month ago and I feel like he’s my older brother,” Chamo said. “He experienced it 10 years ago and now he helps me get through it like I need to. He’s showing me the way.”
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The post IDF soldiers wounded on Oct. 7, in New York for medical treatment, say support from other injured troops crucial for recovery appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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A Christian Zionist Remembers the Holocaust, and Vows ‘Never Again’
People with Israeli flags attend the International March of the Living at the former Auschwitz Nazi German death camp, in Brzezinka near Oswiecim, Poland, May 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
The sky was clear blue — a deep, beautiful Israeli blue. The landscape that stretched before me encompassed 8,000 Jewish people wending their way together toward their destination — Auschwitz, one of the most prominent extermination camps of the Nazi regime, infamous for its optimal performance of systematic murder.
This scene is forever etched in my memory, as I had the privilege to join a diverse representation of Jewish people from around the world at the 2024 “March of the Living” in Poland.
The heaviness was tangible. The ground itself seemed to groan for the atrocities that it had witnessed. It was a time of solidarity, a curious mixture of mourning for the unimaginable evils of the past, and celebrating the miracle of the very existence of the Jewish people despite centuries of hatred.
Some sang, others chattered lively, and still others wept as they walked the ground of death, hell on earth for 1.3 million people during the Holocaust.
The sanctity of that powerful moment was jarringly disrupted. Before entering the secured area for the event, I passed by the flags and angry screams of “Free Palestine.” A few moments later, I saw another rally just outside the compound: “From the River to the Sea, Palestine shall be free.”
I asked myself, “how can anti-Zionism rear its ugly head in a place grieving the tragic outcome of antisemitism?” Nevertheless, it had. Holocaust survivors witnessed an anti-Israel protest while entering Auschwitz — the iconic sight of actualized antisemitism and the embodiment of their suffering.
Anti-Israel rhetoric has become the modern-day platform for antisemitism — the deep-seated, conspiratorial hatred of the Jewish people. Because it is thinly veiled beneath slogans of political progress, modern antisemitism has been allowed to fester and thrive around the globe.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, since October 7, 2023, France and Denmark have seen more than a 1000% increase in antisemitic events, while Austria and Argentina have seen a rise of over 500%. North American antisemitic incidents have also skyrocketed.
Holocaust memorials have been vandalized with swastikas and “Free Palestine” — homes of Holocaust survivors have endured the same. Physical assault, synagogue vandalism, and harassment of Jewish students on university campuses have become regular occurrences in the name of “freeing Palestine.”
If anti-Zionism is not antisemitism, why does it so often target Jews? Where does a slogan such as “Free Gaza” and the use of Nazis Swastikas find common ground? Fundamentally, it is the same root of hatred fueling both movements and producing the same results.
The events of October 7th are nothing less than an attempt to implement the anti-Zionist call, “From the river to the Sea.” 1,200 innocent people were horrifically murdered in their homes, including men, women, and children on that day. Many were raped, burned alive, and brutally tortured. Hamas and their allies freely proclaim their intentions of committing October 7 “over and over,” as well as destroying Israel and murdering the Jewish people. And yet, many in the West dare to call these acts the result of “freedom fighting,” justified in the name of anti-Zionism.
Adolf Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf, was recently found in the tunnels and hideaways of Palestinian terrorists in Gaza. The state of Israel was not established until after Hitler’s reign. The Jewish people had no national homeland to be the target of antisemitism when Hitler put pen to paper. The same antisemitism that possessed Hitler is found in the tunnels of Gaza.
As a student at one of Canada’s most prominent universities, I have witnessed pro-Palestinian rallies at Western University, where participants jeered and targeted my Jewish peers, among other acts of hatred. This has resulted in many Jewish students feeling unsafe or insecure because of their Jewish identity.
Anti-Zionism manifests as acts and rhetoric that targets and harms Jews, rendering it foundationally inseparable from antisemitism, which is the longstanding hate that ultimately led to the Holocaust.
Reflecting on all that I have seen and experienced, as Christian believer in Jesus Christ, this reality does not surprise me. At its root, antisemitism poignantly reveals the battle — ideological, but also spiritual — that exists surrounding Israel and the Jewish people. I believe that God chose the Jewish people and set them apart to be a light for all nations. The Lord Himself promised the Jewish people the land of Israel forever, where His name is set and where the Messiah, Jesus Christ, will return to reign from Jerusalem. Scripture makes it clear that Israel is the apple of God’s eye (Zechariah 2:8), and He is zealous for this land (Deuteronomy 11:12, Psalm 105:8-11). I am obligated and committed to stand against the spiritual root of antisemitism in all its forms.
Antisemitism has disguised itself beneath numerous causes. The Crusades called it “freeing the promised land,” the Spanish Inquisition dubbed it “conversion,” and Hitler referred to it as saving the world in the preservation of the “Aryan race.” Antisemitism today defies Israel’s God-given right to exist and perpetrates centuries of hate toward the Jewish people. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks succinctly put it, “In the Middle Ages, Jews were hated because of their religion. In the 19th and 20th centuries they were hated because of their race. Today they are hated because of their nation state, Israel. Anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism.”
That day at the March of the Living, standing at Auschwitz-Birkenau, I experienced a deeply spiritual moment. I had the honor of walking with the Jewish people in solidarity, as a Christian, and a God-inspired Zionist. I know the faithful character of God who promised to preserve His people. The greatest attempts of the enemy to destroy the Jewish people will ultimately fail.
“Never again” means recognizing and standing against hate even when it changes its mask. On this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, may the world be reminded of its vow to the Jewish people: that horrors like the Holocaust will never happen again. “Never again,” indeed, is now.
Tiauna Lodewyk is a Business student at Western University, Canada, and an Evangelical Christian actively involved pro-Israel advocacy on campus and in the Christian community.
The post A Christian Zionist Remembers the Holocaust, and Vows ‘Never Again’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Reflecting on the Loss of Pope Francis, and the Church’s Views of the Jewish People
Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni speaks with Pope Francis during an inter-religious prayer for peace at the Colosseum in Rome, Italy, Oct. 25, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Remo Casilli
This past Passover, I had the privilege to meet Archbishop Thomas Wenski, who delivered a powerful message about antisemitism and support for the Jewish community at the annual leadership seder hosted by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) of Miami and Broward.
As an Israeli, my upbringing within an ultra-Orthodox Hasidic community in Jerusalem was guided by rabbis who influenced every decision my family made, instilling in me a strong sense of identity and community. Never did I imagine that one day I would have the chance to meet a highly respected leader of the Catholic Church in Miami — the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Miami.
Archbishop Wenski, who served under Pope Francis — who sadly passed away this week — spoke passionately about antisemitism and reiterated his unwavering support for the Jewish people. He emphasized the evolving relationship between the Catholic Church and the Jewish community, whom they regard as older brothers and an integral part of their collective faith. He acknowledged our shared spiritual heritage and the urgent need to foster a deeper sense of unity, respect, and commitment to combating antisemitism.
He highlighted that the teachings of various popes over the past eight decades unequivocally denounce antisemitism as a sin.
Specifically, he referenced the insights of Pope John Paul II, explaining that in the aftermath of the Holocaust, four popes — Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis — have played significant roles in reshaping the Church’s perspective. This shift has led to a noteworthy recognition of Jews as brothers in faith and a steadfast commitment to combating hate and discrimination in all its forms.
The passing of Pope Francis, marked the loss of a reformer known for his dedication to “the poorest” and his commitment to building relationships with Jewish people. On February 2, 2024, Pope Francis addressed his “Jewish brothers and sisters in Israel,” firmly denouncing any form of antisemitism as “a sin against God.”
I often remind people from all walks of life that Israel is a land where various religions can coexist harmoniously, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Druze, among others. Each of these communities contributes to the rich mosaic of our society, bringing with them their traditions, languages, and histories connected to the land of Israel.
Pope Francis will be missed — and I hope his successor will also be a stalwart for the Jewish people.
Ayelet Raymond is an Israel activist, and the creative force behind the @Kosher Barbie character and social media personality. She is also the titleholder of Miss Universe Israel Netanya,
The post Reflecting on the Loss of Pope Francis, and the Church’s Views of the Jewish People first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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The Palestinian Authority’s Plan: Flood Israel with Gaza Refugees Who Will ‘Return to Their Cities’ in Israel
Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists gather at a mourning house for Palestinians who were killed during Israel-Gaza fighting, as a ceasefire holds, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Aug. 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
While the future of the Gaza Strip is yet unknown, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is busy suggesting a solution that will destroy Israel as a Jewish state.
Reacting to US President Donald Trump’s plan to relocate the Gazan Arabs from the Gaza Strip, PA chief Mahmoud Abbas and other top PA leaders are calling for a “return” of Gazan “refugees” to places in Israel that they claim are “their homes and villages” in “Palestine”:
Mahmoud Abbas: All Palestinian “refugees” in Gaza should “return to their cities” in Israel
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas: “Today, 2.3 million Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip, of whom 1.5 million are refugees who sought refuge after they were expelled from their lands in 1948, during which they were subjected to more than 50 massacres by the Zionist terrorist gangs.
If the Americans want a solution – the only place they [the refugees] need to return to is their cities and villages from which they were expelled during the Nakba ([.e., “the catastrophe,” the establishment of Israel], to implement UN Resolution 194. … [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV News, Feb. 15, 2025]
Abbas’ advisor: Abbas said Gazans should return to “their homes and villages” in Israel
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “[PA] President Mahmoud Abbas clearly said: If there is a possibility of the Palestinians leaving the Gaza Strip, let it be to their cities and villages from which their [Palestinian] families were expelled in 1948
… Because 75% of the residents of the Gaza Strip are originally refugees from historical Palestine. If they [Israelis] want them to leave, let them return to their homes, their cities, and their villages.” [emphasis added]
[PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash, YouTube channel, March 22, 2025]
Abbas’ advisor: “Refugees” from Gaza “should return” to Israel, all else is “unrealistic, immoral, illegal”
Al-Habbash: “More than 70% of the civilians living in the Gaza Strip are refugees whose families were expelled in 1948 during the Nakba. They were expelled from Palestine. Any uprooting of them, any leaving by them from the Gaza Strip should be a return to their cities and villages from which their families were expelled in 1948.
Anything other than this is unrealistic, immoral, illegal, inhumane, unimplementable, and the Palestinians cannot agree to it.” [emphasis added]
[Mahmoud Al-Habbash, YouTube channel, Feb. 16, 2025]
Fatah Spokesman calls for “right of return”: Gazans should “return to land and homes” in Israel
Fatah Spokesman Abd Al-Fattah Doleh: “If they [the US and Israel] want to talk about something related to [Palestinian] migration, they should talk about the Palestinian people’s right to return to its land and homes from which it was expelled.
A large number of Gaza residents are refugees and uprooted people who need to return to their land that was occupied in 1948 and 1967. This is the only solution related to the Palestinian people’s rights, only return.” [emphasis added]
[Al-Bawaba (Egyptian news website), YouTube channel, March 11, 2025]
The Fatah Revolutionary Council issued a summary statement from a convention in February 2025, in which they also stressed that:
“Given the uprooting plans, it is necessary to implement the right of return, as explicitly stated in the UN General Assembly resolution 194 in 1949. Any return or population movement must be to the cities and villages from which our fathers and grandfathers were uprooted in 1948…” [emphasis added]
[Official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 23, 2025]
Human rights activist: Palestinians have “a right” to flood Israel, “to return to their homes in the 1948” territories
Director of the Al-Haq Institute for Human Rights Sha’awan Jabarin: “We believe that it is our people’s right to enjoy freedom and independence, and it is the right of our refugees to return to their land and their homes, and I don’t mean to return only to the 1967 [territories], but rather to their homes in the 1948 [territories] [i.e., all of sovereign Israel].
I say here that this is a legal, legitimate, and fundamental right.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV News, March 31, 2025]
For many Arabs and Palestinians, the thought of Palestinian “refugees returning” heralds the end of Israel, something they consider a “historic right” and a “promise” that Allah will surely fulfill.
PA TV serves as platform for call for the “end of Israel”
Egyptian Al-Azhar Cleric Sheikh Yasser Mustafa Younes: “Allah willing, we will all merit to reclaim Jerusalem and all of Palestine from the occupation [Israel] and the Zionist entity, Allah willing, and they will disappear.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Palestine is Not for Sale, March 8, 2025]
The author is a senior analyst at Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article was originally published.
The post The Palestinian Authority’s Plan: Flood Israel with Gaza Refugees Who Will ‘Return to Their Cities’ in Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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