“Hadassah rehabilitation centre is like that,” said the facility’s longest full-time rehabilitation resident, a frum 49-year-old Master Sergeant and father of eight who will be referred to as “Adam”.
“Here it doesn’t matter what religion you are, what your politics is. It is a microcosm of Israel at its best; Muslim, Jew, Christian, living and working together and supporting one another.”
[Missing Credit]The Gandel Rehabilitation Center
The strategically-important Mount Scopus, though today is fully integrated into the Jerusalem Municipality despite being surrounded on all sides by the West Bank, was for many years an isolated Jewish enclave in Jordanian-held territory until the Six Day War when it was recaptured and reintegrated into the urban fabric of Jerusalem.
Although the original building was built nearly 10 years before the establishment of Israel, the hospital has undergone numerous expansions and evolutions in the decades since and now serves as the only modern medical facility in the region, and is constantly operating at maximum capacity.
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The Gandel Rehabilitation Center[Missing Credit]
Each room in the full-time and part-time rehabilitation wings – which provide neurological, physical, and occupational therapy – are decked out with state-of-the-art machinery and equipment, including a heated pool for hydrotherapy, anti-gravity treadmills, and sophisticated electronic sports and puzzles games to assist in the recovery of mental faculties and improve hand-eye coordination.
[Missing Credit]Anti-gravity treadmill in the Gandel Rehabilitation Center
There are even two simulation areas made to look like a fully furnished apartment and a supermarket, that staff say have done wonders in helping patients practice for a return to normal everyday life activities.
[Missing Credit]A supermarket simulation in the Gandel Rehabilitation Center
Adam, who has clear blue eyes and a large salt and pepper beard, was found sitting on the bed in his room, crutches to one side. A cool breeze was rolling into the room through the open wall that leads to his room’s private balcony, where just beyond olive trees gently swayed.
Seven months ago, he had been in the middle of the deadliest firefight between Israel and Hezbollah since October 7, during which six IDF soldiers were killed in action and a further 15 were severely injured.
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'Adam', a Master Sergeant in the IDF who was wounded fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon[Missing Credit]
Following the pager operation against Hezbollah in September, when hundreds of pagers carried by leaders of the Shia terrorist group were simultaneously detonated by Israeli intelligence, Adam’s reserve platoon was tasked with moving north over the border to apprehend a target.
In the first Lebanese border village they entered, called Blida, they found “in every single house we entered” kitbags, weapons, explosives, uniforms, and detailed maps of Israel with annotations of where to go and what to do.
“We realised it wasn’t a village at all. It was a military base disguised as a village,” Adam recalled. His unit quickly learnt, and later had it confirmed that Blida was the main gathering point, weapons depot, and launching pad for Hezbollah’s planned full-scale invasion of northern Israel. It was the group’s strategy to assemble fighters from Beirut, Tyre, and elsewhere in Lebanon and send them to Blida to arm before entering Israel. If such an invasion was allowed to take place, it could have easily been even more devastating than Hamas’s rampage in southern Israel on October 7.
In the next village, Aitaroun, they found countless similar stashes as well as many white pick-up trucks hidden under foliage and tarps throughout the village, identical to the ones used by Hamas.
In one house that looked like “a regular civilian home”, they found an “incredible” amount of weaponry, anti-tank missiles, hundreds of crates of magazines, grenades and weaponry. “It was a full-on military deposit centre, enough to arm an entire platoon,” Adam said.
[Missing Credit]Heated hydrotherapy pool in the Gandel Rehabilitation Center
As they began to methodically remove it all from the house, they suddenly came under fire from Hezbollah terrorists, two of whom had been hiding upstairs. Four IDF soldiers were killed in the first moments of the fight.
A grenade was tossed at the feet of Adam and his commander, the shrapnel of which “riddled” their legs, but adrenaline kept Adam standing.
The Gandel Rehabilitation Center[Missing Credit]
As the last line of defence between the gunmen upstairs and the rest of his unit, who had already begun removing the fallen soldiers so they cannot be snatched for use as bargaining chips, Adam went through three magazines in suppressing fire.
He was shot three times in the legs, which put him to the ground, but still he continued to fire. Eventually, a bullet shot from atop the stairs entered his neck, scraped his lung, broke a few ribs, then exited his back, leaving today a large exit wound and scar.
“I just heard a crunch, and I couldn’t move any more,” he said, leaning over from his hospital bed to reveal a large dressing across the back of his neck and back.
He underwent five surgeries to remove shrapnel and has been in the full-time rehabilitation wing of Hadassah Hospital ever since.
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[Missing Credit]A man in the Gandel Rehabilitation Center and his service dog, Kevin
Adam’s commander who was on the other side of the grenade became his roommate in the wing for three months before being moved to partial care and then deciding to rejoin his reserve unit.
In one week, Adam will no longer require crutches, and in two weeks he too will be transferred to partial care, where he will live at home and come into the facility two to three days a week.
Motioning at the room around him, he said: “In this place, I learnt to walk again. And with the help of the amazing, caring people here, I will run again. And when I can, I will rejoin my unit in the north and continue to defend Israel.”
[Missing Credit]A bomb-resistant floor of the Gandel Rehabilitation Center
Shiri Shabbat, a slight, thoughtful and soft-spoken woman who emanates kindness, is the facility’s senior physician in physical and rehabilitation medicine.
Speaking from her office, which was like Adam’s room adorned with hand-written cards and messages of thanks, she said the hospital’s 20 doctors, some 50 nurses and many physiotherapy specialists are “incredibly close, like a family.”
She said: “I’m very proud of our diverse and tightly knit team. One moment we are helping a double amputee IDF veteran with his new wheelchair, and the next we are fitting splints for a local Arab painter who fell off his ladder.
“But in every case, it’s not just the wound we heal, we see them gradually go back to being themselves, to return to being alive.”
She continued, “Patients often come to us when they are at the lowest point of their life, but together we see them back to health. It’s a process that is very exciting to be a part of; to be at their side literally every step of the way until they are back walking and then running again.”
The Gandel Rehabilitation Center[Missing Credit]
She said the demand on the rehabilitation wings after October 7 was “extreme”, so much so that it was forced to take over other areas of the hospital, and the number of beds used for rehab more than tripled to over 70 with about 200 spaces for outpatients.
Shiri’s cousin was murdered by Hamas on October 7 while guarding a kibbutz. Her husband, who enlisted after Hamas’s invasion, has been to Gaza four times since October 7 and is often away for many weeks at a time. Her sister, too, is serving on the frontlines of the IDF and has been stationed in Gaza multiple times in the last 18 months.
Shiri Shabbat, head of the Gandel Rehabilitation Center[Missing Credit]
“I’ve gotten used to worrying,” she said. “But to work in rehabilitation in Israel while the war goes on, I feel like it’s some kind of a healing environment also for me, not just for the patients.
“In the middle of the chaos, death and loss, I feel like I’m doing something with meaning. It’s like an oasis of purpose. I can help in the way I know how instead of staying home and worrying. My work, and Hadassah hospital, dissipates the feeling like everything is doomed and, in its place, puts hope.”
