“When I got on the plane yesterday in New York, there was concern that I would land here this morning without hope,” Leiter said.
By World Israel News Staff
The condition of IDF reservist Neria Leiter, the son of Israel’s ambassador to the United States, stabilized Thursday morning following hours of complex brain surgery after he was critically wounded in a Palestinian car-ramming terror attack on Route 443.
Shaare Zedek Medical Center said Leiter remains in serious condition and his life is still in danger.
“Neria Leiter’s condition is stable after a series of tests and surgeries,” the Jerusalem hospital said Thursday. “His condition is still defined as serious and his life remains in danger. We have hope, and we are conducting assessments from hour to hour.”
His father, Ambassador Yechiel Leiter, landed in Israel Thursday morning after rushing back from New York and went to the hospital to be with his son.
“When I got on the plane yesterday in New York, there was concern that I would land here this morning without hope,” Leiter said. “But during the night, the doctors managed to stabilize his condition.”
“We feel that we are in the best possible hands,” he added, saying the family understood that Neria had endured “a very complicated night.”
The ambassador’s arrival came after Neria underwent emergency brain surgery lasting several hours Wednesday night. Doctors said his head injury was the most serious of the multiple injuries he sustained in the attack.
Amid the family’s ordeal, Leiter revealed that another of his children was hospitalized just yards away from Neria after giving birth to a daughter overnight.
Neria’s sister had initially come to Shaare Zedek to be alongside her critically wounded brother despite being on the verge of giving birth.
“Her water broke,” Leiter said. “She gave birth to a daughter, and now she is lying 40 meters from her brother.”
The ambassador also reflected on the death of Neria’s older brother, Maj. (res.) Moshe Yedidya Leiter, who was killed fighting Hamas in northern Gaza in November 2023.
“This experience is different from the night when I received the knock on the door three years ago, when my eldest son, who was fighting in Gaza, fell in the line of duty,” Leiter said.
“He died immediately. There was no possibility of bringing him to the hospital and having Israel’s top doctors save his life. We also had no opportunity to gather around his bed, recite Psalms and rally the people of Israel to pray for his recovery.”
Neria continued serving in the reserves following his brother’s death and has completed hundreds of days of reserve duty on multiple fronts since the October 7 massacre, according to his father.
Leiter also addressed the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying he had received news of the attack while in New York shortly after giving an interview about violence in Judea and Samaria.
“The violence there is Palestinians harming Jews, with the aim of uprooting the Jews from this land,” Leiter said. He argued that violence committed by Israelis represented exceptions rather than the central nature of the conflict.
Leiter also criticized French President Emmanuel Macron over remarks at the United Nations this week in which Macron claimed Hamas had “never operated in the West Bank,” pointing to the killing of Netanel Shukrun in a recent attack as evidence to the contrary.
“It did not prevent the president of France, out of ignorance, malice and wickedness, from standing at the UN and saying that Hamas had never harmed Jews in Judea and Samaria,” Leiter said.
“The goal is to uproot us from this place,” he added. “That is the bottom line. Everything else is chatter. It did not begin on October 7. It began long before, going back to the establishment of the state.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the Leiter family at Shaare Zedek on Wednesday night shortly before departing Israel for the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Netanyahu asked the public to pray for the recovery of Neria Dov ben Chana.
The visit followed hours of intensive treatment after Wednesday afternoon’s attack. Shaare Zedek said Neria initially underwent life-saving procedures in its trauma unit before doctors performed complex brain surgery that lasted several hours.
The hospital said surgical and intensive-care teams continued providing life-saving treatment throughout the night.
Neria was critically wounded when a Palestinian terrorist rammed him with a vehicle while he was serving at a checkpoint on Route 443 near Beit Horon. He was serving alongside an Israel Police officer as part of a joint police-IDF security operation.
Security forces at the scene shot and killed the attacker.
Despite the stabilization in Neria’s condition overnight, doctors stressed Thursday that he remains seriously wounded and is not yet out of danger.
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