Neriyah Leiter, the son of Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter, was discharged on Wednesday from Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center and transferred to neurological rehabilitation seven weeks after being critically injured in a terrorist ramming attack.
He remains unconscious but is breathing independently, the hospital said in a statement.
Leiter was admitted to the hospital’s trauma unit in critical condition with severe head injuries and remained in immediate, life-threatening danger for several days, according to the statement.
During his hospitalization, he underwent several neurosurgical procedures and major orthopedic surgeries. He spent several weeks in the general intensive care unit, sedated and on a ventilator, receiving specialized medical care, the hospital said.
He will now be treated by Dr. Yevgeny Karpov, a senior neurosurgeon specializing in trauma and intensive care, under the direction of Dr. Stefan Mausbach, according to Shaare Zedek.
In the statement, the Leiter family thanked the medical teams at Shaare Zedek for their “dedicated and professional care, which went above and beyond.” The family added that it wishes to maintain its privacy and asked everyone to continue praying for Neriyah.
Leiter, an Israel Defense Forces reservist, was struck by a Palestinian terrorist at a checkpoint on Route 443 near Maccabim on Sept. 23. The attacker was shot dead by Israeli security personnel.
Ambassador Leiter’s eldest son, Maj. Moshe Leiter, was killed in Gaza in 2023. The ambassador noted that Neriyah continued to serve in uniform after his brother’s death.
Since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel, “he has served hundreds of days in the reserves on multiple fronts,” the ambassador said of Neriyah following the terrorist attack.
“Palestinian terrorism seeks to uproot the people of Israel from their land,” he stated. “They choose death. We choose life.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the Leiter family at the Jerusalem hospital in September and asked the public to pray for the recovery of “Neriyah Dov ben [son of] Chana.”
