The footballer and the student. Six months ago they were in Venice, where Ben Binyamin, 29, a player for the Israeli club MS Kiryat Yam, asked his young partner Gali Segal to marry him on board a gondola, surrounded by red roses, an engagement ring and emotional looks. A life together, like a month ago, on October 7th, when the two of them were together with a group of friends at the music festival that was the scene of the Hamas massacre. Both were hit by terrorists, they survived, but suffered the amputation of a limb, both on the right. And in the last days they were discharged from the hospital to the hugs and applause of doctors and nurses, smiling, disoriented, walking towards life, perhaps not quite what they had planned, but the consciousness, survivors too his, was visible in their eyes. They will now continue their rehabilitation in Tel Aviv.
Israeli soldier stabbed in Jerusalem, attacker killed
“The terrorists threw grenades at us, then shots,” said the player, who plays in the Northern League A (Israeli fourth division). It was her family members who reached her and took her to Hillel Yaffe Hospital in Hadera. “I was in a group of 40 people taking shelter in a bunker and the terrorists threw grenades at us,” he told The Jerusalem Post. “I have seen so many terrible things, corpse after corpse, including body parts.” It’s hard for me to digest what we’ve been through and what I’m going through personally. It’s hard to end my career this way, but there are more important things in life.
The defender, also an entrepreneur, was an experienced lower league player and spent several seasons in the second division (Liga Leumit) with Hapoel Acre, Hapoel Nof HaGalil or MS. Kafr Qasim. The 25-year-old partner is studying architecture. The two young people have traveled, most recently in Italy, from Venice to Sicily, then to Greece, Berlin, Amsterdam and the Sinai Desert. Adventurous experiences, but also holidays, always close, hugged, big plans in your heart.
FLAGS AND HOLIDAYS
Now he with the crutch, she with the walker, they left the hospital after a month where they were saved thanks to the extreme choice of amputation. Between Palestinian flags waved by doctors and emotional relatives. “You are brave, together you will do it,” they said to encourage the couple. She, Gali, posted a story on Instagram yesterday: It says 31 days, you see a group of children huddled together, you see the injured with their legs bandaged to stop the blood. The terror remained imprinted on their souls and bodies. But Gali immediately thinks of her missing friend Shani in her story.
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on Il Messaggero