By Lynn Bentzen
It is an extraordinary and moving story of courage and determination: Raz Peri, a 20-year-old cancer patient, threw himself on a grenade to protect the lives of others during the devastating attack by Hamas terrorists on the Supernova festival. Miraculously he survived!
Raz Peri went to the festival because he wanted to live his life to the fullest. Because: The young man is running out of time as he is fighting lymphatic cancer.
When the first shots were fired, Peri and a group of festival-goers fled to a shelter on the side of the road. But they soon found themselves targeted by the terrorist group. They heard some men speaking in Arabic, so one of the women in the hiding place became very scared and started screaming.
When one of the terrorists entered the shelter to investigate, Peri didn’t hesitate for a second and attacked the armed man with his bare hands. A bitter fight for life and death ensued between the two, in which the terrorist fired his weapon, missed Peri, and hit a festival-goer who was also hiding in the leg.
During the fight, Peri and the attacker ended up outside the bunker, whereupon other terrorists began shooting at them – killing their own accomplice, while Peri crawled back into the shelter.
“I had nothing to lose”
But the horror never ended: the terrorists threw a grenade into the bunker to brutally murder those seeking protection. Without hesitation, the cancer-stricken Peri jumped on the grenade to save the lives of the people he had met just a few minutes before. Because, as he says, he had nothing to lose.
The blast ripped through his legs and arms, leaving him motionless on the ground, while another of the men in the shelter had his leg blown off, reports said the Times“.
A couple then tried to escape from the shelter and were shot dead by the terrorists. Peri lay over the two’s bodies and pretended to be dead while he continued to be shot at. A bullet passed through his body and hit his stomach.
And yet, miraculously, he survived the brutal attack. Peri is now being treated in an Israeli hospital and is finally safe for the time being.