Ben and Gali, An Engaged Couple, Both Lost Their Right Legs

Before attending the Nova music festival in the south of Israel on October 7^th, Gali Segal and Ben Binyamin were a regular Israeli engaged couple, planning their wedding. They got engaged on a trip to Italy, where Ben presented Gali with a ring and a beautiful bouquet of roses.

The couple have known each other for seven years. Gali is studying interior design and Ben works in real estate, but his passion is soccer. He played in the national league as a defender. “Soccer is my whole life,” he says.

Together with some friends, Ben and Gali went to the Nova music festival to celebrate Ben’s birthday. The celebration turned into a nightmare.

“Suddenly, we saw mortars exploding,” says Gali. “We started running towards our car.”

Ben Binyamin (right) and his fiancee Gali Segal speak to Channel 12 news from hospital, November 17, 2023. (Channel 12 news screenshot: used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

The couple and their friend Shani got into their car and began driving, but other people warned them not to continue. They saw a mobile shelter and a policeman motioned to them to go inside.

The tiny shelter was full of people, squeezing inside to stay safe. Then Ben, Gali, and Shani heard gunshots coming closer and closer. People were screaming. The terrorists were shooting at the people crowded at the entrance to the shelter.

“I pulled Ben and Shani down so they wouldn’t get shot,” says Gali.

Ben adds, “Several minutes after the shooting, I saw a grenade.”

There was a loud explosion.

“I thought to myself that we stood no chance of getting out of there,” says Ben.

“We must have lost consciousness,” says Gali.

When they opened their eyes, everything was black.

Gali says, “I remember seeing Shani walking out of the mobile shelter, talking on the phone. She said, ‘Gali and Ben are injured, maybe dead.’ She wasn’t sure if she should run away or stay. And I couldn’t call out to her. I couldn’t speak.”

Many were hurt in this explosion. Surrounded by cries for help, Gali felt around her body.

“I went into complete shock,” she recalls. “I screamed, ‘I don’t have a leg!’ And Ben, next to me, said, ‘Save your strength! Stop screaming!’ He said to me, ‘If that’s our fate, if that’s what’s supposed to happen to us, at least we’re together.’ It felt like the end.”

Right then, a SWAT officer, part of the security team at the festival, arrived at the mobile shelter. He exchanged fire with a terrorist shooting at the shelter and managed to get inside where he found many people screaming for help.

“Thanks to him, we’re here,” says Gali. “If he hadn’t come at that exact time and had managed the situation the way he’d done, we wouldn’t be here.”

The officer stopped cars fleeing the festival and asked them to take the wounded to the ambulances waiting at the entrance.

When Gali and Ben were pulled out of the shelter and taken to the ambulances, neither of them knew if the other one was still alive.

Gali says, “The whole time in the ambulance, I was in shock. I was screaming. And when we got to the hospital, I kept asking everyone, ‘Where is Ben?’”

Ben recalls, “When I arrived at the Soroka Medical Center, my vitals were low. They thought I wouldn’t make it.”

When Gali was wheeled through the hospital hallway, she saw Ben in a bed nearby. He saw her too, and they called out to each other.

Gali says, “The moment we realized we were both alive was such a relief!”

Their joy was marred by the realization that they both lost their right legs.

Two days later, Ben and Gali were transferred to the Hillel Yaffe Hospital in Hadera. In the following weeks, Ben underwent three surgeries, and Gali underwent seven. Throughout this time, they remained next to each other in the hospital, supporting each other as they came to terms with their losses and coped with physical and emotional pain.

Slowly, they learned of the extent of Hamas’s horrific terror attack. Their friend Shani was declared missing and later found dead.

The hospital staff is going out of their way to help the couple recover, from providing medical care to organizing a challah separating ceremony in the department.

Gali and Ben are still looking forward to their wedding, but they have a long road ahead of them.

Ben says, “We looked out the window, and we saw two soccer fields. I looked at them and started crying. Like I’ve lost what I’d devoted my whole life to… I don’t think it sunk in just yet.”

After a month in the hospital, the couple was transferred to the Tel Hashomer rehabilitation department where they are busy with physical therapy. This wasn’t how they’d expected to spend their engagement.

Gali says, “There are times when I’m optimistic and say that it’s just a leg, it’s not such a big deal. And there are other times, when I say, ‘It’s not me.’”

Photo: Spokesman, Hillel Yaffe Medical Center

The only couple in the rehabilitation center, where dozens of wounded in this war are recovering, Ben and Gali have something unique – they have each other. And even though they haven’t yet decided on a wedding hall or on what song to play as they walk down to the chuppah, they know how they want to walk down – on prosthetic legs.

“That’s the goal!” they both say.

“In this darkness, this is my only ray of light,” says Gali. “This is our small victory.”

This article is based on the StandWithUs video:

Featured image: Spokesman, Hillel Yaffe Medical Center