The Fellowship Supports a 13-Year-Old Bus Bombing Victim

The Fellowship  |  April 20, 2016

As Israelis continue to face acts of terror as they go about their everyday lives – including yesterday’s bus bombing that injured more than a dozen people – The Fellowship continues to provide emergency grants of $1,000 to victims and their families to help with costs related to their injuries. Today we gave one of those grants to Yosef.

Thirteen-year-old Yosef is one of six children in a single-mother family; the father abandoned the family years ago. Because his mother cannot afford to raise all six children, Yosef lives in the Beit HaTzayar orphanage in Jerusalem, which provides a secure home, regular meals, and a loving community.

Two months ago, Yosef celebrated his bar mitzvah with The Fellowship‘s assistance when The Fellowship‘s Kiryat Yovel soup kitchen prepared the festive meal.

Yesterday morning Yosef spoke on the phone with his mother. She sounded depressed, and he feared something was going on that she wasn’t telling him. He assumed it was related to the upcoming Passover seder night and the fact that there was no food in the house. Yosef received permission from the orphanage counselor to go visit his home and check on his mother.

That afternoon Yosef was riding on the number 12 bus when he heard a large explosion and immediately lost consciousness.

He remembers waking up to a feeling of burning heat. Through blurred vision and a deafening ringing in his ears, Yosef saw that his hand was in flames. He got up from his seat and saw a body without arms and legs. He was able to move past it and get off the bus.

Outside, he saw a boy lying with a large glass window shattered over his lower body. Yosef remembers that the boy was crying and screaming. He didn’t hear it because of the ringing in his ears, but he could see it in the eyes and facial expressions of the boy. Yosef lay down next to the boy and told him not to worry because “an ambulance will soon come to take care of us. I’m here waiting with you.” At that moment he lost consciousness.

Yosef was rushed to the emergency room with a strip of metal stuck in his leg and burns on the right side of his body from his foot to his shoulder. He faces a long period of rehabilitation which will include operations and skin grafts. Yosef is currently sedated to let his body recover from the trauma. When they wake him, they’ll check the damage to his hearing.

Yosef, who was taking a trip to support his struggling mother, now finds himself facing a long rehabilitation process for his body and soul. Yosef’s mother and orphanage staff members don’t move from his hospital bed as they wait for him to wake up again.

Please join us in praying for Yosef and all the others injured in this senseless attack.