Shuri Moyal was all of 19 years old when he set out with his fellow soldiers in the Nahal Brigade into Gaza to protect his people. Ambushed by Palestinian terrorists, Shuri nearly lost his life in battle, and close to a decade later, he’s still recuperating from the emotional trauma. A dog and wounded parakeet that he discovered right outside Belev Echad Center were his impetus for recovery.
“My friends and I went into Gaza, and discovered for the first time, the real meaning of war. We were surrounded by shooting, bombing, disaster and death. We sought refuge in an abandoned house, never realizing that we’d walked straight into a death trap. Suddenly, we heard an explosion. We’d been ambushed,” Shuri Moyal recalls his nightmarish experiences that pursue him even today, close to a decade later.
It was July, 2014, and following unceasing missile, rocket and mortar fire on its civilian centers, Israel launched a military operation codenamed “Operation Protective Edge” in the course of which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) targeted strategic Hamas facilities, tunnels, weapons and leadership. The conflict lasted 50 days, with a series of short-lived ceasefires breached by Hamas. Israel initially attacked Hamas targets by air, however, on July 17, Israel sent ground forces into Gaza for a period of just over two weeks in order to destroy Hamas’s infrastructure, including rocket storage sites and infiltration tunnels which Israel was unable to destroy by aerial attacks.
On the 11th day of the conflict, Shuri Moyal and his fellow Nahal Brigade soldiers were sent into Gaza where they worked to eliminate terrorist cells one by one. At one point, they took up position in an abandoned house, only to realize that they’d been ambushed. Shuri Moyal and two others were badly wounded in the ensuing battle, but miraculously they made it out of Gaza alive.
Thus commenced a long, drawn-out rehabilitation period for Shuri that didn’t end when the doctors pronounced him physically fit. “Physically, I was fine. I’d recovered all my faculties, but emotionally, I was in a dark, forbidding place,” Shuri relates. He refused to leave his house, refused to leave his room or communicate with his parents, let alone his friends. He lost interest in social events, in life itself; he was depressed and traumatized, but Shuri himself didn’t realize what was happening to him.
It was Belev Echad that stepped in to help pull him out of his depression. “We heard about Shuri, and we knew he needed help. He’d born witness to the worst, seen things that no one should ever have to see. We went to visit him several times at home, but it took us a good few times until he was prepared to leave his house and join us at the Center,” relates Major Raz Budany, who directs Belev Echad’s Center in Kiryat Ono.
Open Sunday to Thursday, Belev Echad’s Center offers delicious lunches, a fully-equipped gym and fitness center, semi-Olympic pool and array of facilities that allow wounded soldiers and veterans to rehabilitate physically and emotionally in a warm, supportive environment, along with friends who’ve been through similar harrowing experiences.
As an international initiative dedicated to easing the transition of wounded-in-action (WIA) soldiers and terror victims back into mainstream society and the workforce, Belev Echad had created a well-designed support system that builds on the skills and hobbies of each soldier and veteran to navigate his or her return to life. For many soldiers, the organization assumes the roles of mentor, advocate and friend, guiding him or her through critical medical, educational and professional decisions and celebrating life’s milestones together, big and small.
“When we asked Shuri what he likes to do, and he said that he likes to cook, on the spot we were able to offer him a job cooking at the Center for friends and fellow soldiers who were wounded in action. This was how we first drew Shuri out of the house,” Budany relates. Major Raz Budany was likewise injured in battle in 2009, and it was Belev Echad that lifted him from the morass of depression that followed his debilitating injuries and guided him back to life.
“They taught me what it meant to live again, to feel joy and happiness again, and to want to give and contribute to society,” shares Budany, who has since taken those sentiments far and inspired hundreds of soldiers to follow the path of recovery and healing that he took. “At the time, Shuri was in a bad place, but we gave him a schedule, along with the understanding that he could grow past his physical and emotional injuries to succeed again in life.”
Shuri started coming to the Center once and then twice a week, and before long, he’d found his place. His job cooking at Belev Echad gave him motivation to wake up in the morning, and day by day, he began emerging from a world that had gone dark. Belev Echad also gifted him with a dog which quickly became the young man’s best friend and was a powerful factor in his healing.
“Mikasa forced me to take responsibility. She got me out of bed in the morning and taught me that the world is still filled with love,” Shuri expresses.
One late morning while Shuri was cooking lunch at the Center, his dog started barking. “It wasn’t a regular barking. Mikasa was trying to tell me something,” he relates. Following his dog outside, Shuri found a small green parakeet tweeting weakly on the grass, scared for its life. “I knelt and picked it off the grass, sure that it would fly away before I touched it. But the little guy was injured, and it couldn’t fly.”
Shuri was instantly flooded with a deep wave of compassion, and he felt his heart open in a way that he hadn’t felt since before that fateful day in Gaza. “I felt so bad for him that I brought him inside. He reminded me so much of the person I’d been a few months earlier—frightened, injured, yearning for protection and love.”
Day by day, the parakeet is healing; now, it can fly down, but not up, but it’s not ready to depart the warm, healing environment at Belev Echad. Amazingly, this little parakeet has been a harbinger of healing for many wounded soldiers and veterans at Belev Echad who all have a soft spot for little Tuki. Since the Center is closed on weekends, the soldiers and veterans take turns bringing him home, but Tuki is happiest of all in the Center where he hops from shoulder to shoulder and enjoys the attention and love that the soldiers shower on him.
“We all feel a connection to him. He’s like us—wounded, weak, and slowly healing. We help him and he’s helping us. Every day.”