An Israeli citizen was injured while fighting for the Ukrainian military against Russian forces, according to a statement on Thursday by the international branch of Zaka, an Israeli-based volunteer rescue unit.
The Israeli, who goes by the name Titzina Gandi, was injured after stepping on a bomb. He was evacuated to a hospital in Kharkiv by the Ukrainian military and then transferred to a hospital in Kyiv in serious condition, through the combined efforts of Zaka and the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
Gandi is originally from Netanya. Zaka's international hotline received word about him once he got injured two weeks after going into the conflict with Russia.
Gandi said that the operation where he got injured involved him and three other soldiers in the forest.
Statements
"We were four soldiers, two in front and me and my friend in the back not so far away," he said. Gandi also said that the first two were killed in a Russian attack and he and his friend sustained injuries to their legs. Following those injuries, he said that he and his friend clawed through the forest to reach soldiers that could take care of them.
"Upon receiving the call about the injury of the Israeli civilian soldier, we contacted him and realized that he was hit in his lower limbs and a shrapnel in his face," said Nachman Dickstein, deputy commander of Zaka in Ukraine. "Due to his severe injury, it was difficult to release him to another hospital.
"This is where Oleg Vyshnyakov, who serves as Israel's Honorary Consul in Ukraine, came into the picture," Dickstein continued, stating that Vyshnyakov asked the Ukrainian health and defense ministries to transfer Gandi to the hospital in Kyiv.
"Upon receiving the call about the injury of the Israeli civilian soldier, we contacted him and realized that he was hit in his lower limbs and a shrapnel in his face."
Nachman Dickstein
Gandi said that he still has to undergo surgeries due to his injuries.