One last moment, before they say goodbye, Assaf puts a painful hand on Nebo's shoulder and says thank you.
Thank you for saving his life.
Nebo, embarrassed and proud, thanks him back - thanks for the fighting, for the bravery.
Grateful for the privilege of seeing him again, safe and sound and even smiling.
A month and a half has passed since the last time they met somewhere on the outskirts of Beit Hanun in the Gaza Strip, surrounded by live fire from Hamas terrorists.
A month and a half since Assaf was seriously injured by shrapnel from gunfire and a bomb explosion, and since then Nebo and his team evacuated him to a safe place, and from there in a Moscow evacuation to the hospital.
Documentation: This is how Unit 669's casualty rescue system works // Photo: IDF spokesperson
Now they are here, at Kibbutz Shaar Golan where Asaf is undergoing physical therapy.
Hugging, having men's fun, when the heart explodes with excitement.
Nebo eagerly listens to the story through Assaf's eyes.
He didn't recognize him at first.
After all, the last time he saw him, Assaf was covered in blood.
But he is happy to see him alive, and understands the important meaning of his role.
"Throughout the reserve service I treated what I was doing as work in order to be able to deal with it, and when I see you now I understand how significant my work there in the field is," says Nevo.
"It hurts to see you injured like this, with pain in your leg, but it's also very moving to see that you keep smiling. It's definitely closing a circle for me. These are the moments that give me drive to keep doing the work."
Nebo and Assaf meet a month and a half after the injury, photo: Eyal Margolin/Gini
"Shooting from all directions"
Both were drafted into the armor reserve at the beginning of the fighting.
Asaf, 25 years old, married and the father of a one-year-old and five-month-old child, lives in Beit Shean.
He is a sergeant major (res.) who fights in the 79th battalion who worked in collaboration with the 14th PLASR. On a daily basis he works in security, and now he is undergoing a rehabilitation procedure.
Nevo, 26 years old, married and the father of a one-year-old and three-month-old child, lives in Moshav Ramot.
He is a captain (res.), in the position of commander of the evacuation unit of a combat team of the 14th brigade. He is one of the owners of a "country carpentry", and now that he has been released from the reserves, he is trying to rehabilitate the carpentry where he did not stay for three months.
On November 23, both were in Beit Hanon in Gaza.
Assaf worked in collaboration with the Palsar, covering the tanks entering the battle. "You don't understand how my heart rate rises when I tell this," he is excited. He remembers almost every moment of the battle, until the injury. He remembers how they started to go to the target, and as soon as one The soldiers intended to launch a missile, the missile was accidentally fired at an adjacent house and led to an explosion.
Nevo in Gaza, photo: IDF spokesman
Assaf and soldiers of the 79th Battalion in action in Gaza, photo: IDF spokesman
"In the beginning there is a big boom. Everything is vague, and you don't understand what is happening," Assaf's speech is fast.
"You start to hear guys saying 'I'm wounded,' and then shooting starts from all directions. My earplugs flew out of the page, and I flew back. It's a moment of shock, where I feel pain and consciousness blurs. I realize that I've been wounded.
"A medical unit was rushed to us, and the medic began to undress me completely and check for bleeding. I remember telling him that I had something in my head, but he looked and said that it looked fine, and that it would be better to treat the injury to my leg and hand. While doing so, I see injuries in the dirt next to me, and the sand flies From the bullet page For me, this event was about an hour, but it turns out that the evacuation took a minute or two.
"I just remember that the guys inside the barracks told me to go up, and I tell them that I can't go because the area near the entrance is exposed to gunfire. Someone shouted at me from the inside, 'Come up now, I'm covering you,' and then I and Ethan, my duo, went up. I was Conscious, but I don't remember details..."
Assaf smiles and his flow of speech stops.
From here he will smile shyly and pass the story on to Nebo.
"I don't really know what happened there," he apologizes.
Destruction in Beit Hanon in the Gaza Strip after the IDF strikes, photo: AFP.
"unnatural role"
Nebo laughs lightly.
It's the same story, he will say softly, just from two different angles.
"Now that I'm out of the situation I'm beginning to understand that my role is unnatural," he smiles.
"As long as there is silence, I am not in the battle, but when our forces begin to kidnap, we go in. In the evacuation brick I am holding there is a driver, a machine gunner who knows how to return fire, two medics, one of whom is also a liaison officer and a sniper and a doctor. I listen to the battalion liaison, the company liaison, and the guys from The medical evacuation to know where to go.
"In the same incident, the battalion went into a raid, and I only heard about 'I was wounded' and 'they were shooting at me,' and I decided to go in with the team. I had a whole team with me who was doing holy work, and they fought, and made an effort, and were there no less than me because all our roles are intertwined That's what keeps you there a lot of times, the knowledge that your team is with you all the time. Because in any event like this you're alert. When you arrive at a shooting scene, certainly when you arrive from the outside like we do, you really have no idea who's shooting at whom, but you know you're going straight into this mess to save the wounded."
"It's absurd to call it a job."
Nevo in Gaza, photo: IDF spokesman
In such moments, Nebo will explain, he tries to get into the position as much as possible, without thinking about what is really happening on the ground.
"At that moment, you must detach yourself from any emotion you would expect to have. I don't think about who was injured and how they were injured, I know that I have to throw the wounded to the helicopter and that is the only thing on my mind. I remember that in that event we put two wounded into the vessel, we closed the hatch of the cruel and we started to drive. Then I hear on the connection that the incident is unfolding and that we have two more wounded. In retrospect, these are Asaf and his duo, Eitan, and we return and take them with us.
"In the first moment the brutality is just full of blood. I see only blood, almost no face. It's hard, but in moments like this I cut off the wife and child I have at home, cut myself off from thinking about the guy lying here wounded and what his medical condition is, cut everything off to to do the job, evacuate the fire area as quickly as possible, and report the condition of the wounded so that a helicopter can be prepared for them. Only then do I really evacuate the wounded.
"It's absurd to call it work. Work is for your living, and here I am evacuating the wounded and being in RPG arenas. But lately it's the work of my whole country, my friends, our family. And it's the most just. We're at war for the people Ours, about our abductees, about the security of the citizens. But as right as it is, it's also sad."
Rescue under fire: special documentation of the evacuation of the wounded from the combat zone by rescue helicopters and soldiers of Unit 669 // Photo: IDF spokesperson
"heart warming"
For the most part, Nevo's relationship with the wounded ends as soon as they are evacuated from the battlefield.
It was the same that day.
After evacuating the four wounded from Beit Hanon, they were called again to evacuate the wounded and returned inside the bloody neighborhood.
Only now Nebo hears Assaf's full story.
Assaf was referred to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital and was hospitalized for almost a week. A CT scan revealed that he suffered shrapnel injuries to his hand and leg. Another shrapnel hit his right ear, passed through it and entered his head. Miraculously, no vital organ was damaged.
Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, photo: Yoav Ari Dudkevich
"I don't remember much from the hospital, only that I was in shock and that a medical team ran to me," Assaf says.
"I really had the feeling that the whole hospital was there to take care of me and the other wounded, and it eased my panic. The doctors removed the shrapnel from the hand, but the shrapnel in the leg remained. It doesn't affect my daily life, but the rehabilitation is more complex because the wound takes longer to heal The doctor who removed the shrapnel from my head said that if it had not gone through the ear, we would now be in a completely different situation.
"But there are many things that give me a lot of strength. After I saw my wife and my son, when I left the operating room, I got a lot of strength. To this day, people meet me and understand that I was wounded in the war and congratulate me and thank me, and it warms the heart."
Assaf's fight in the arena may be over, but it doesn't stop haunting him.
A week after he was released from the hospital, Hamas released a video, in which you can see his uniform and CD that were left in the field.
Hamas claimed that it was an abduction from October 7, while Assaf and his family know that he is at home.
In another video, the injury incident is seen through Hamas cameras.
"The knowledge that I was photographed in those moments, and that they could have shot me in a second, is crazy," he says.
"I don't think I'll ever be able to digest it."
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