Two and a half years after she lay unconscious under the wheels of a terrorist’s car, Raz Mizrahi, 22, was murdered by Hamas in the terror attack in Israel. This month, on October 9, she was supposed to arrive in Los Angeles with a group of eight IDF veterans who suffered various injuries during their service. Belev Echad, an organization that was established 14 years ago by Rabbi Uriel Vigler and his wife Shevy, brings each year wounded IDF soldiers to a 10-day dream vacation.
Mizrahi looked forward to that trip. A few days before she was scheduled to leave with the group to the U.S., she went with friends to the music festival in Nova, near Kibbutz Reim. This was one of the first targets for Hamas militants as they parachuted in the area and attacked the young men and women in the early hours of Saturday morning, October7. They shot at the crowd and grabbed as many hostages as they could. Mizrahi was shot to death.
A year ago, during a ceremony where she received her officer’s rank, she recalled the events of the day she almost died: “I will never forget this moment in my life. It was May 16, during the Operation Guardian of the Walls. I was at the checkpoint in Sheik Jarrah. Alerts for terrorist attacks arrived all the time. Suddenly, a terrorist’s car raced toward me and toward my friends at the checkpoint, I flew in the air.”
She continued, “Fractions of seconds pass, and I’m already under the wheels of the car, on the driver’s side with another policewoman, hearing gunshots overhead and saying goodbye to my future, saying goodbye to my dreams. If I stay alive, best case scenario, I will be disabled in a wheelchair.”
However, despite her severe injuries, Mizrahi survived. She finished an officer’s course of the MGB. “I didn’t let the injury, the physical pain that I still suffer from or the mental pain and anxieties to take over my life and divert me from the path I dreamed of: to be an officer in the MGB,” she said.
“I didn’t let the injury, the physical pain that I still suffer from or the mental pain and anxieties to take over my life and divert me from the path I dreamed of: to be an officer in the MGB.”
The commander of the MGB, Superintendent Amir Cohen, saluted his soldier.
“Raz is a true warrior,” he said. “I remember her in the hospital after the injury, and I am excited to meet her today as she attacks the target and fulfills her dream of becoming an officer who will lead the next generation of MGB fighters in the fight against terrorism and crime,” said the commander. “The story of Raz’s life, the injury and especially the heroic rehabilitation are an example and a model for everyone who will be under her command.”
Raz is survived by grieving parents, Gal and Nirit, and a brother and sister.
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