Rehab and recovery for brave defenders of Israel
BEIT HALOCHEM, the Israeli charity dedicated to rehabilitating injured veterans through a broad range of physical, mental, social, and educational programmes, has since the October 7 atrocity seen an unprecedented increase in demand for its services, having to “nearly double” the number of programmes it offers, the chief executive of its UK wing has said.
Approximately 12,000 soldiers, reservists, police officers and rapid-response squad members have been wounded since the Hamas terror attack, with more than 3,400 veterans admitted into Beit Halochem, which translates as “House of Warriors”.
In December, a 36-hour matched fundraising campaign by the UK arm of the charity, Beit Halochem UK, raised a staggering £2.2 million, since rising to over £2.5 million, from more than 2,700 individual donors, about 65 per cent of whom were first-time donors to the charity.
Spencer Gelding, chief executive of Beit Halochem UK, told the JC: “We’d never done a campaign such as this before, and hope to never again, but we were totally and utterly blown away with the result. People up and down the country got involved, including Jews abroad who had heard about the campaign we were doing and wanted to contribute. We had a major fundraising dinner in June, and so we were effectively asking people to now give twice within a few months, which made the total all the more impressive. The generosity of our community has been phenomenal and is allowing us to make an immediate and tangible impact on the brave young men and women defending Israel.” Since being established in 2012, Beit Halochem UK has raised approximately £30 million to support state-of-the-art facilities, initiatives and equipment for the charity’s four rehabilitation centres in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem and Be’ersheba.
Beit Halochem suffered heavily in the wake of October 7 and its aftermath. Sixteen members have been killed, 21 children of members murdered, six grandchildren murdered, one member taken hostage and four children/grandchildren/parents of members abduct
ed by Hamas. One of its new members, 25-year-old Itay Sagy, sustained critical injuries to the neck and shoulder from a Hamas grenade during the Battle of Zikim beach on October 11, where just four days previously 19 civilian beachgoers were murdered.
Itay and his team in the elite Sayeret Maglan brigade were among the first units sent to war in the immediate aftermath of October 7, tasked with clearing the territories surrounding the Gaza Strip of lingering terrorists.
His team of normally 24 were ambushed while at half strength by members of Nukhba, a special forces unit of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigade, the military wing of Hamas, and proceeded to hold them off until reinforcements were able to arrive.
Six members of his unit were injured in the coastal firefight, and for several minutes a cornered Itay fought eight terrorists alone, killing at least two, before a grenade landed in front of him. Itay said: “I flew up in the air and, when I came to, found myself lying on the ground, unable to move or breathe, nothing was working. I had an out-ofbody experience, looking at myself, and watching my friends already coming to my aid beside me. I knew I needed to join them.
“After half a minute I came back and began to breathe again while we were still under heavy fire. A combat medic friend jumped at me and told me my neck was torn open from side to side, and he somehow stopped the bleeding.”
Eventually, the rest of his team arrived and terminated the remaining terrorists. Three members of Itay’s team, Itay Moreno, Daniel Kastiel and Ido Kaslasi, were killed in the fight.
Itay was visited by Beit Halochem while in hospital and invited to his first event. “I went and it was amazing,” he said. “I love the people there.
“The injured who go to Beit Halochem find a real sense of purpose there, and it’s a place they can go to reliably be around other people like them. There’s not a lot of places in the world like it and I so appreciate all that they do.”
There are more than 54,000 injured Israelis who are members of Beit Halochem. A fifth and final rehabilitation centre is currently under construction in Ashdod and will be recognised as the national centre for PTSD in Israel.