Years after the incident in which Lieutenant Hadar Goldin (May his memory be a blessing) was kidnapped and killed and three Givati fighters were killed, Nadav still finds it hard to forget the sounds and sights. He then sat in a tank, only hundreds of meters from the tunnel, and heard his comrades-in-arms being killed.

"There was an explosion. Crazy, crazy firepower. And when the Hannibal Directive was announced, it was a moment that changed my life", Nadav says of the battle that overturned his life. "It's a feeling of death, of losing control of the body. I felt my heart torn apart. And I found myself just saying, "Oh my God, just take me home."
I don't sleep well, nightmares about what happened, flashbacks. I started to feel the anxiety in a very aggressive way. At 3:00 A.M., I wake up sweating."

The process for recognition from the Ministry of Defense is long. He submitted the application in 2015, and only two years later received temporary recognition of 26% of his disability, which does not qualify for full assistance. For the psychological treatment he recieved before his application, Nadav had to pay thousands of dollars out of his own pocket. Starting in 2020, on the advice of his therapists, Nadav began working with a service dog, also at his own expense. Only recently, after a long and exhausting struggle, did Nadav receive the recognition he deserves from the Rehabilitation Division of the IDF.

Photo: Ronen Fadida