For a generation of Israel’s amputees and other wounded soldiers, rehabilitation is just the start of a lifelong, personal struggle

Photos: Abi Kantob

ITtakes a few minutes to pinpoint precisely what’s disconcerting about the rehabilitation ward at Sheba-Tel Hashomer medical center outside Ramat Gan, where some of Israel’s most critically injured soldiers are in various stages of recovery.

It’s not the obvious, like the man with the Moshe Dayan eye patch who winces as he lowers himself into a chair. Neither is it the man who gestures vigorously across the lobby with his two stumps. Nor is it the one who sips a coffee, the cup held in his bionic hand.

What’s disconcerting — incongruous, even — are the smiles. Here of all places, where a war’s worth of trauma is confined within the sterile corridors, there’s a surfeit of positivity. Wounded veterans shuffle between rounds of therapy. They bond over stories of war and injuries. They politely decline the latest doughnut offer from an American tour group. And yet despite their life-altering injuries, they exude a surprising amount of energy and good cheer.

“Why shouldn’t I be happy?” asks Avishai Turgeman, as he dexterously wheels himself around the ward. “I survived, and so I’m grateful.”

The scene in Sheba is a window into a world that’s sometimes lost in the overarching narrative of the war — the story of the large numbers of injured. Even excluding the thousands recognized by the Defense Ministry as suffering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), the statistics of Israel’s longest conflict are sobering. Since October 7, 2023, there have been about 14,000 wounded, at the rate of almost 1,000 a month. These numbers are already double that of the Yom Kippur War, and counting.

Between the heartrending scenes of military funerals and the heartwarming sight of reservists returning, the wounded are a third category: They come back home, but they’re very different from when they left.

For months after the Hamas bloodbath, the wards reflected the uniquely horrific nature of that day, one on which civilian and soldier alike were targets. But as the war enters its 16th month, the demographics have changed: the civilians are now visitors and the beds are full of soldiers in their 20s and 30s.

As Israel’s most advanced trauma and rehabilitation center, Sheba alone has treated some 2,000 wounded soldiers and civilians. Advances in combat medicine mean that survival rates are far higher than was once the case. A soldier who makes it from battlefield to operating theater within an hour stands a 99 percent chance of surviving.

Close up, the reality of that survival is tough. Life after an encounter with high-impact explosives means the delicate reconstruction of the human body piece by piece. It means healing damaged tissue, adding new mechanical limbs and learning workarounds to replace lost movement. And for many inhabitants of these wards, it means the struggle of their lives is just beginning.