Nova Survivor and Widower Comes Home to Raise His Children after 400 Days in the Hospital

‘My greatest victory is, first of all, to return home to raise my children.’

By Shula Rosen, United with Israel

After 400 days of intensive medical treatment, Nati Ganon, a widower and Nova festival survivor, is released from the hospital to care for his three children.

Although there was celebration among the staff at Ichilov Hospital over Ganon’s recovery, the release was bittersweet since Nati Ganon would be going home without his wife Shiran, who Hamas terrorists killed.

The two attended the Nova Festival on October 7th, and when Hamas attacked, Ganon told Kan that the couple tried to flee in their car.

When the car got stuck, they jumped into another one, and in the process, a Hamas terrorist shot Nati and Shiran in the leg.

Although they both tried to exit the car, Nati could not move further than the ground and told his wife to keep running.

“I was shot and lay in a field for five hours, bleeding,” Ynet quoted him as saying. “I knew it wasn’t good, but it was only after I arrived at the hospital that I realized I was injured in the back — the bullet had missed my spine by millimeters.”

Nati was rescued alive and brought to the hospital, but his wife was declared missing for a week before her body was found.

She was buried in Holon on 15, and relatives cared for their three children, Ilay, 15, Ori, 11, and Mai, 8, while Nati remained in the hospital for extended treatment.

400 days later, Nati Ganon’s seriously injured leg not only didn’t require amputation, but he can now walk without a cane for 10 minutes at a time.

The rehabilitation was grueling not only physically but emotionally, as Ganon describes having had a mental break on several occasions.

He told Ynet that there were times he “didn’t get up for treatments, stayed with the blanket up to [my] neck, and didn’t want to talk to anyone.”

However, Ganon pulled back from these dark periods and continued his treatment with the help of a caring and attentive hospital staff.

“The team has a huge heart,” he told Ynet. “What I went through is not something ordinary.”

Although his healing process is a triumph, Ganon declared that his real victory will be returning to raise his children and pursue his profession.

“My journey doesn’t end here,” he said. “My greatest victory is, first of all, to return home to raise my children, and secondly, to return to the profession that I love — hairdressing.”

Dr. Anna Sezhin, director of the rehabilitation system in Ichilov, told Ynet, “Despite the tragedy of the past year and the mental and physical pain, here he is getting out of here on his feet – with an eye to the future.”