Reb Asher Biton of Ashdod, who suffered a multi-system injury after being hit by rocket shrapnel on Monday, remains in serious condition in the ICU of the Assuta Medical Center. The doctors have decided not to operate on him out of fear he won’t survive the surgery. However, the doctors have said that his life is not in danger and they will perform the surgery when his condition improves.

Reb Biton’s wife, Rivka, told Israeli media outlets how she found out that her husband was injured through photos of the scene on Whatsapp groups. Her children began to cry: ‘Ima, it’s Abba’s car.”

“I called his phone and there was no answer,” Rivka said. “Suddenly someone accidentally pressed his phone and I heard screaming and police and ambulances. I rushed there in a cab. We saw the car with its windows shattered and I began to scream that it can’t be. They wouldn’t let me approach the scene of the attack. My son who was with me screamed and cried and said to the police: ‘It’s my father, let me through!'”

Rivka said that her husband was injured from many shards. “He [saved his life] by laying on the ground with his hands on his head. He has many internal injuries. I’m still in shock. I feel like I’m in a nightmare that I still haven’t woken up from.”

In conclusion, Rivka requested the public to daven for her husband. “He was on the way to do a great mitzvah, to distribute bread to needy families. Every evening he gathers the baked products [from his bakery] and distributes them to families. We’re hoping that in the zechus of these mitzvos, he will have a refuah sheleimah.”

The rocket attacks from Gaza, which lightly injured 12 others, was the Palestinians’ way of “celebrating” the peace accords between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

His name for tefillah is Reb Asher Masoud ben Sheba b’toch shaar cholei Yisrael.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)