Ashkelon, Israel – Yarin Levy, 16, was on his way home from the barbershop in Ashkelon on Sunday when shrapnel from an exploding rocket hit him in the chest and landed him instead in Barzilai Medical Center’s intensive care unit.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Throughout the afternoon his family, huddled in a small waiting room outside the unit, as warning sirens continued to ring out in the large southern city on the edge of the sea.
After speaking with Yarin’s doctors, his father Avinoam walked outside to take a small break and sat on a small wall, to the side of the hospital.
A few friends found him there, shook his hand, and asked him questions about the attack. Wanting to be helpful, one of them went inside and bought him a coke.
As Avinoam sat there he also spoke with The Jerusalem Post about the attack that jolted out of what had otherwise been a routine summer day and into a nightmare.
His son Yarin had called him around 8:30 a.m., while he was on his way to work, and sought permission to leave the house to get a hair-cut, recalled Avinoam.
“He just wanted a hair-cut, just like any 16-year old,” said Avinoam.
But given the security situation and the rockets that had fallen on Ashkelon and were likely to continue to fall, Avinoam told Yarin he was nervous and didn’t want him to leave the house.
“At first I objected. I was in the car, I spoke with him on the telephone, I said, ‘It’s not worth it. It’s not safe. Stay home with your brothers and sisters,” Avinoam recalled.
“But in the end he convinced me because the barber shop is not so far away,” said Avinoam.
Yarin made it to the barbershop safely and was walking home around 12:30 p.m., when a warning siren rang out.
“He as only 20 meters from the house. He tried to run in the direction of the house, but realized he would not make it. So he cowered by a wall,” said Avinoam.
The wall offered slim protection as the rocket fell 20 meters away from him on a sandy strip of ground, just off a major street in Ashkelon, flanked by homes.
Shards from the rocket hit Yarin in the chest and he was rushed immediately to Barzilai Medical Center, which also treated five victims of shock from the attack.
Avinoam had just arrived at a customer’s house in Hadera, when his wife called, hysterical, to tell him that their oldest son, out of five, had been seriously injured in the attack.
“It was a very difficult conversation,” recalled Avinoam. He still wore his work uniform, a light blue button down shirt with a company logo.
He worried the whole way, not knowing what he would find when he arrived. “I do not wish the drive to the hospital on anyone,” Avinoam said.
His first sign of unconscious his son, in the hospital room, was hard, but he was comforted by seeing that a “staff of angels” was working to cure Yarin, said Avinoam.
“At this moment, I just came out of intensive care and the doctor said that his condition is stable.
“We are waiting and hoping and praying that he will recover with God’s help,” Avinoam said. Yarin is as strong as his family, he added.
“I believe that we will survive this,” he added.
Of the war with Gaza in general and the Palestinians that live there, just a short distance away from where he said, Avinoam said, “They are our neighbors.”
“We have to live with them. I hope that in the next generation, our children will live together in peace.”
Content is provided courtesy of the Jerusalem Post
Yet another decent Israeli parent.
If the Arab animals could behave it would be nice however the derech ha’teva is that they are farshultina animals.
We are hurting with you.