When Captain Yair Lifshitz woke up in intensive care after two and a half weeks in a coma, his life had changed beyond recognition.
The 25-year-old paratrooper officer from Jerusalem had been shot eight times in Gaza, lost a major artery in his leg and was, according to doctors, “more dead than alive” when he arrived at Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital.
Yair in the hospital after he had been shot (Photo: Yair Lifshitz)[Missing Credit]
But waiting for him was extraordinary news.
Two days after he had been critically wounded, his wife Esther discovered she was pregnant with their first child.
“When I woke up, I thought it was all an illusion,” Lifshitz recalled. “But I was so happy to understand that it was real.”
Today, less than three years later, Lifshitz is studying medicine at the Hebrew University, raising two young children and has completed a half marathon in Vienna.
His journey began on October 7, 2023.
Lifshitz, then a platoon commander in the Paratroopers Brigade’s 101 Battalion, was at his parents’ home with Esther when news broke of the Hamas attacks.
He immediately headed to his base and was airlifted south, joining the battles to retake the kibbutzim around Gaza.
Two weeks after Israel launched its ground operation in Gaza, his unit was sent to clear a building.
“I was the first to get in,” he said. “I got shot by terrorists hiding there and I fell into the building while my soldiers also got shot.”
Unable to move or speak, he initially thought there had been an explosion. Then he realised he had been hit.
Moments later, he saw three Hamas gunmen standing just metres away, their weapons trained on him, but fortunately, they presumed him dead.
“I thought they were going to shoot me and I didn’t think I would survive,” he said. “I tried to say Shema Yisrael as I thought I wouldn’t make it.”
His thoughts turned not to himself, but to what might happen if he was taken hostage.
“I hoped they wouldn’t kidnap me or my body, as it would be a nightmare for the country.”
As gunfire and explosions raged around him, another officer in his platoon considered throwing a grenade into the building but spotted Lifshitz lying on the floor and held back.
Eventually, comrades stormed in, threw a grenade over him and dragged him to safety under heavy fire.
He had been hit by between six and eight bullets, including wounds to his neck, abdomen and both legs.
After his comrades applied a tourniquet and rushed him to the Gaza coast for evacuation, medics from the elite Unit 669 administered an experimental treatment that has saved the lives of many Israeli soldiers during the war: whole blood transfusions directly on the battlefield.
He received four doses before reaching hospital.
With esther in hospital (Photo: Yair Lifshitz)[Missing Credit]
“The last thing I remember,” he said, “was seeing the fluorescent lights above me like a movie.”
For his family, the following days were agonising.
His father was serving in the reserves and his brother was also fighting in Gaza.
“When the soldiers came to tell my parents about me, the first thing they asked was: ‘Which son?’”
Doctors repeatedly warned the family that his chances of survival were slim.
“They told me that I came to the hospital ‘more dead than alive’ and when they arrived, they said I was ‘more alive than dead’.”
Lifshitz spent four months in hospital and underwent numerous surgeries.
The first night he left intensive care coincided with the beginning of Chanukah.
“I insisted on lighting the first candle to mark the miracle,” he said, doctors wheeling his bed to a place he could say the blessings of miracles he felt himself truly living.
Doctors managed to save his leg but could not say whether he would ever walk again.
The first time he managed a few steps with a walker, he described himself as “the happiest man in the ward”.
A visit from another wounded officer, who had lost a leg years earlier, changed his outlook.
“He told me, ‘Accept the difficulties and the disability and accept the fact you need help,’” Lifshitz said. “The second thing he told me was: ‘You’ll be able to do whatever you decide. It depends only on you.’”
That advice became his guiding principle.
“I understood that if I wanted my future daughter to have an involved father, it depended on me. I needed to decide then how my life would look in the next years.”
Rehabilitation was gruelling. Learning to walk, climb stairs and perform ordinary tasks became daily victories.
Then he set himself an audacious goal: walking five kilometres in the Jerusalem Marathon for wounded soldiers.
Yair learns to walk again (Photo: Yair Lifshitz)[Missing Credit]
“Nobody believed I could do that,” he said.
He did.
Running soon became his therapy.
“Running became my therapy for my soul and for my confidence and self-belief.”
In April, he completed the Vienna Half Marathon in an impressive one hour and 33 minutes as part of Brothers for Life, an organisation supporting wounded veterans.
Today, he still undergoes physiotherapy twice a week and lives with permanent physical injuries and psychological scars.
Yet he refuses to see them as limitations.
“I try not to see that as a disability,” he said. “I try to look at it like a talent I need to live with.”
He and Esther are now parents to daughter Hallel and baby son Suri.
“To be a father is the best,” he said.
Both are also pursuing medical careers, with Esther now finishing her own medical studies.
“My wife is the queen,” he said. “She’s amazing,” he said, having nursed her husband, raised two children, and still continued the relentless demands of medical school.
With wife Esther and their daughter[Missing Credit]
Lifshitz believes the meaning he found in his injuries has been central to his recovery.
“The purpose of my injury was because I was fighting for my nation, my country, which helps me every day to accept the injury,” he said. “It’s better to be wounded in the battlefield than to be in a car accident, because you have a purpose, a significance.”
“Every day is difficult,” he added. “But you choose life every day to be one step forward.”
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