“Alone you may walk fast, but together you walk far,” Ben Ladani, a member of the Israel Defense Forces’ Oketz canine unit who immigrated from South Africa to enlist and was wounded in Gaza’s Jabalia while losing his military dog, told the JNS 2026 International Policy Summit on Tuesday.
“When we are divided and when we fight against one another internally, that’s when the enemy strikes,” Ladani added.
The panel, titled “Israel’s Wounded Warriors,” featured Ladani alongside IDF veterans Raz Budani and Itay Sagi.
Ladani, who spent two-and-a-half months in a coma and two-and-a-half years in a wheelchair after being shot seven times, told the audience that his injuries and lengthy recovery taught him many life lessons.
Those, he said, are the importance of family and friends; the value of physical and mental health; maintaining perspective and seeing the glass as half full; not carrying hatred in one’s heart; having patience and understanding that while tragedy can strike in seconds, healing takes time; putting on tefillin every morning; and recognizing that behind every great man stands an even greater woman.
Finding a new mission
Raz Budani served for 12 years in the IDF’s Golani Brigade. During “Operation Cast Lead” in 2009, after three days of fighting, he and 24 other soldiers were wounded while three others were killed.
While still on crutches, Budani insisted on returning to Nahal Oz to rejoin his soldiers. On the way there in a military vehicle, he was attacked by a terrorist and wounded a second time.
“Someone got me twice, and I felt I did not want to live anymore,” Budani told the audience.
Budani spoke about the challenge of rebuilding a normal life after such trauma. Six years later, he overheard his daughter telling her mother that she had been asked at school what her father did for a living and did not know how to answer. Her mother responded by describing what Budani had done in the past.
“My wife told my children, your father was—as if I am no longer here—and I figured I needed to do something different,” he said.
Budani later received an invitation from Belev Echad, an international nonprofit that helps wounded IDF soldiers rebuild their lives through physical, medical, legal, emotional and financial support, to travel to New York and raise awareness about wounded veterans.
“When I came to New York, something changed in me. People there said I was a hero. I had forgotten who I was and what I did for my country. I felt inspired,” Budani said.
After returning to Israel, Budani decided he wanted to help transform Belev Echad into more than an organization that supports wounded soldiers—he wanted it to become a family. He now serves as the organization’s director of programs.
“We started with 300 soldiers and since Oct. 7 we have 3,000 soldiers,” he said.
“I just wanted to feel that I was doing something. Major Raz Budani is not dead and he still wants to save lives. In the past, I was fighting terrorists; now I fight for the lives of the soldiers that come into the organization,” he added.
‘I wrestled death and I won’
On Oct. 11, 2023, five days after the Hamas massacre in southern Israel, Itay Sagi and his IDF unit entered Gaza to recover the bodies of Israelis killed by the terrorist organization. During the mission, the unit was ambushed, three soldiers were killed and Sagi was critically wounded.
He now serves as vice president of Frontline Advocate, a rapid-response organization that deploys to college campuses, public squares and protest sites to challenge what it describes as anti-Israel misinformation and false narratives.
“I am not supposed to be here right now. I wrestled death and won. I woke up and learned the sad truth that I had lost three of my best friends,” Sagi said.
“We fight on behalf of life, not death, but I invite all of you to stand up and say their names: [Master Sgt. (res.)] Itay Moreno, [Master Sgt.] Ido Kaslasi, and [Sgt. 1st Class (res.)] Daniel Castiel,” he added, as the audience repeated the names.
“In their death, they commanded us to live, and we are sitting here in nice suits and with nice perfumes in this beautiful place. Fallen soldiers fought so we can have the best life we can. Remember them and thank them,” he said. “We are fighting for our country, our families and for the Jewish people across the world.”
