Cutting-Edge Rehab Center Takes Root in Negev Desert Oasis

The Fellowship  |  September 17, 2019

Residents of southern Israel must head north to get to the nearest hospital. But now a new rehabilitation hospital is opening in southern Israel, ensuring those suffering from accidents, injuries, and terror attacks have care.

The center was set up through the vision and determination of Maj. Gen. (res) Doron Almog, among the most celebrated figures in the history of the Israel Defense Forces. Almog helped lead the famed Israeli hostage rescue at Entebbe in 1976 and for years after, as head of the IDF’s Southern Command, foiled countless attempts to launch terror attacks in Israel.

His son Eran, named after Almog’s brother who died on the battlefield during the Yom Kippur War, was diagnosed with severe autism and developmental disabilities. That is what spurred Almog to set up ALEH Negev, to cater for the needs of people like his son, who died 12 years ago at the age of 23.

“My son Eran was the reason we set up the village, for people like him with severe disabilities,” Almog said during a visit to the village last month to mark the progress of a new initiative: a cutting-edge rehabilitation hospital, the first for Israel’s south…

The new hospital — only the second to be built in Israel in the past 50 years — is now going up within the village. It will meet the needs of hundreds of residents of the south who currently need to travel to Tel Aviv for rehab hospital services following accidents, injuries, strokes or terror attacks. The hospital will also serve IDF soldiers serving in Gaza who require in-patient rehabilitation.