ADI NEGEV — Baruch Cohen, 74, the former security coordinator at Kibbutz Magen, lost his right leg while fighting against dozens of Hamas terrorists who had infiltrated the kibbutz from Gaza during the onslaught of October 7, 2023.

Cohen said that now, whenever he is in a crowd of people, he first looks at their legs.

“I can tell if they have prosthetics and are amputated above the knee or below the knee, even if they’re wearing pants,” Cohen told The Times of Israel at the ADI Negev-Nahalat Eran rehabilitation village, about 40 minutes from Beersheba, where he is an outpatient.

A retired lieutenant colonel in the paratroopers, Cohen and his team were credited with repelling waves of invading terrorists intent on perpetrating a mass slaughter at Kibbutz Magen. But during the fighting he was shot in the leg, and eventually had it amputated. He spent months in rehabilitation and was fitted with a prosthetic leg, but remained in “terrible pain,” he said.

It was not until Cohen flew to Chicago in August 2025 for a new prosthetic leg that he began to feel some relief. The new limb he got there, he said, “even has cushioning so I can drive for hours and I’m not in pain.”

With the opening of the School of Prosthetics and Orthotics at the ADI Negev rehabilitation village, Israel now has a specialized facility of its own for amputees like Cohen, who said “nobody is happier” about it than he is.

A Defense Ministry spokesperson said it paid for the expenses of Cohen’s trip abroad to receive his prosthetic leg and also funded trips for prosthetic fittings for the other 87 recent amputees.

There are currently 1,061 amputees in Israel who lost limbs in injuries from military activities, including 88 troops wounded in fighting against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah on the border........

© The Times of Israel