Major Wihbe Abu-Awad, Deputy Commander of a Reserve Battalion and a resident of Ein Al Asad, a Druze village located in northern Israel, is a husband to Lila and father of two young boys, Asil and Anil. On December 26, 2023, while responding to a Hezbollah anti-tank missile attack, Wihbe and a rescue team, which included Dr. Akram Saad, were caught in a second strike. Eight soldiers were injured; Wihbe was critically wounded.
“I got badly hit on my right leg. I felt like a gas tank had exploded in my leg,” Wihbe recalls. “I saw that I was still conscious and alive. I noticed two people, one of them being Dr. Akram.”
A Silent Hero Steps Forward
Despite having just suffered a blast injury himself, Dr. Saad, a reserve battalion physician and a pain specialist and oncologist at Sheba Medical Center, sprang into action. “When I got to him, I just saw that he was injured so badly in his right leg. I decided that he’s going to be the first one to be evacuated,” Dr. Saad shares.
During the evacuation, Wihbe turned to Dr. Saad with a nervous look in his eyes asking: “Will I survive?” Dr. Saad bent down, kissed his forehead, and answered, “You will survive.”
From Trauma to Trust
At Sheba Medical Center, Wihbe underwent 21 complicated surgeries to save his leg. “Things that we don’t see every day,” says Dr. Saad. It wasn’t just the medical expertise of Dr. Saad that sustained him, rather the human connections as well.
“There were a few seconds I don’t remember at all,” Wihbe says. “He just told me I was injured, calmly, without panic. From the moment I opened my eyes in the ICU, he never left. Not a single day passed without him either coming by or calling to check in. He was more than a doctor. He was a friend. He was a brother, supportive, attentive.”
Returning to Life in Every Sense
Wihbe spent roughly a year in Sheba Medical Center specialized rehabilitation center, known as “Returning to Life.” For Dr. Saad, the name reflects more than just treatment. “This wasn’t only a name,” he says. “After I see Wihbe now with his lovely family, I think that we accomplished our purpose, he returned to life.”
Their story is not only one of survival, but of the healing power of loyalty, care, and human connection—an unbreakable bond formed on the battlefield and forged in recovery.
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