Some 80 Israeli soldiers were hospitalized on Sunday with injuries sustained through the 13th day of Operation Protective Edge in Gaza Strip. Five soldiers were seriously injured, two were moderately-to-seriously injured, and the rest were lightly wounded. Col. Roee Levy, 35, commander of the Golani Brigade's reconnaissance unit, sustained serious injuries Sunday, and was hospitalized in stable condition at the Neurosurgery Intensive Care Unit at Sheba Medical Center in central Israel. Levy was injured during 2008's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza Strip, but returned to active duty soon afterward. A soldier serving under Levy's command described him as "an outstanding leader, one of the best." Sgt. Amit Zohar, 21, who servers in Levy's unit, was lightly wounded on Sunday. "He sustained shrapnel wounds to his face and ears," his sister, Rotem, told Israel Hayom. "He has already informed us all that he wants to go back to his unit." Sgt. Shai Ganon, who sustained moderate-to-serious wounds during Sunday's fighting, turned 20 on Monday. "We've spoken to him and he says he doesn't really remember much. He said they were entering a house when the fire began," Ganon's father, Yehuda, told Israel Hayom. "He remembers the soldiers coming under fire from every direction and hearing an explosion, then waking up at the hospital." Health Minister Yael German visited the wounded in Sheba on Sunday. Malka Davidovitz, a nurse at the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon, was at work when she was told her son had been injured in a clash with terrorists in Gaza Strip, and had been brought to Barzilai for treatment. "My family initially told me he was stationed in northern Israel, so I wasn't as worried, but when I got to the hospital for my shift I was told to go to the emergency room because my son had just arrived there and was asking for me. Luckily he wasn't hurt very badly," she said. "We talked and I understood how much he and the other soldiers are doing for Israel, how brave they are." Among the wounded are several lone soldiers, who came to Israel for the sole purpose of joining the IDF. One is hospitalized in the Rabin Medical Center in Petach Tikva in a serious condition, and his father is making his way to Israel. Immigrant Absorption Minister Sofa Landver visited the wounded soldier on Sunday, saying she had met him in the past, when he first enlisted in the military through the Garin Tzabar program. "He's been placed on a respirator so he can't really speak," Landver said. "When I came up to him he opened his eyes and mumbled, 'I remember you.' It was very moving. I remember how motivated he was -- a 19-year-old boy, who just lost his mother and had no family in Israel, and did everything he could to join a combat unit." The father of one of the soldiers who sustained serious injuries and is hospitalized in the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, told Israel Hayom: "Parents have to know that even if two soldiers show up on their doorstep in the middle of the night, it doesn't necessarily mean the worst has happened. Things can still get better." Six of the soldiers who were hurt during Sunday's fighting were hospitalized at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem, and 14 were taken to the Rabin Medical Center in Petach Tikva. Dr. Eran Halpern, the hospital's director-general, said all of the wounded were out of danger and in stable condition. The parents of Yarin Moskowitz, a Golani medic who was wounded while treating his injured comrades, said that they "understood and supported" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decisions concerning Operation Protective Edge, noting that the IDF should be allowed to "finish the job."
