The son of Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich was wounded by shrapnel from a Hezbollah rocket on Friday, Smotrich has announced.
Writing on X yesterday, Smotrich said: “Last Friday, terrorists fired a mortar shell toward Givati soldiers on the Lebanese border, and eight soldiers were wounded. One of them is my beloved son, Binyah Hevron.”
The Givati birgade is an infantry brigade of the IDF and serves as its amphibious force.
“Shrapnel penetrated his back and abdomen,” Smotrich continued.
“He was rushed to the hospital, and only there did we discover the great miracle that had happened to us.
“By the grace of God, one of the fragments tore the liver and stopped at the wall of the largest blood vessel in the abdomen. Had it, God forbid, been damaged, the situation would’ve been far more serious,” he said.
Iranian-backed Hezbollah began firing rockets and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) at Israel last Monday, in retaliation for Israel’s targeted killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei. The ayatollah was killed as the joint Israeli-US military operation against the regime began on February 28.
Eight IDF soldiers were injured, including five who were seriously wounded, in Friday’s Hezbollah rocket attack, which targeted an IDF military position near the northern border. Binyah Hevron sustained light to moderate wounds, according to initial reports.
Smotrich yesterday extended gratitude to “everyone who cared, called, prayed, or asked” about his son’s injuries, saying the family was “deeply moved by the great embrace from the entire people of Israel.”
He said that his son remained “strong and determined,” and that “with God’s help, after rehabilitation and dedicated treatment, he will recover and return to us and to the IDF.”
The leader of Israel’s far-right Religious Zionist Party continued: “Sadly, several of his friends were also seriously wounded, and we all pray for their recovery, together with all the heroic wounded IDF troops.
“For the past two and a half years, I have been sitting in the cabinet and in the forums leading the war with awe and trembling, aware that every decision concerns life and death – not only for my own children on the front lines, but for all of our precious soldiers, whom I see as my own sons.”
He added: “The price of war is not simple for any of us, but faith in the justice of our path, the victory over our enemies, and the future of the entire people of Israel give us hope and strength.”
In response to Hezbollah’s violations of a ceasefire deal agreed by Israel and Lebanon on November 27 2024, Israel launched an aerial campaign against the terrorist organisation, in addition to ordering IDF troops to advance and take control of additional areas in Lebanon to halt cross-border assaults.
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz yesterday that Hezbollah’s attacks had opened up opportunities for Israel to strike the terror group to “exact a price from it” and restore “great security” to Israel’s north.
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