Hagai Lerner, who lost his sight while fighting in Gaza four months ago, lights torch at Independence Day ceremony in Kiryat Arba, together with Ram Cohen, who was also injured.
Hagai Lerner, who was seriously wounded in Gaza four months ago and lost his sight, lit an Independence Day torch in Kiryat Arba, along with the wounded Ram Cohen.
“We fought until Passover in the northern Gaza Strip and then in the southern Gaza Strip in Rafah,” Lerner recalled in a special video produced by Avi Cooperberg. “I received a reserve order once again after a year of fighting. We were in an attack in Nusrayat and a squad of terrorists fired an RPG missile at us. I fell into the tank and realized at that moment that I couldn’t see.”
“I was asleep for a whole week. What is special about the reserves is the connection between the people. When I got to the company I was fighting with, I was with them for only two weeks. I didn’t really know my platoon commander. When we were injured, no one knew what was really going on with the other, and the first question of the platoon commander when he woke up was what was going on with me. When I woke up my first question was what about him,” he added.
Lerner added, “If we could go back in time, I would have gone anyway. In the end, you have to do what you need to do for the country. What gives me faith – is G-d, and what happens – happens.”
His father said: “I must mention Shira, Hagai’s girlfriend, who he was supposed to propose to a few days after he was injured. She was there from the very first moment when we couldn’t identify Hagai. And she didn’t move from him.”
