Yesterday I got a message on our family group: Modiin people- check in.

Check in.

That's one of the worst messages here in Israel.

Because it means that something horrible has happened near you.

And someone wants to make sure that you're still alive.

Check in means, - please resurface and let me know that you're OK, because there is a chance that you are not OK.

Yesterday's check-in was instigated by a car ramming near Modiin on the highway at the checkpoint. In the attack yesterday, the Palestinian assailant accelerated toward a police cruiser stationed at the “Bell” checkpoint, where Routes 4436 and 4437 from Beit Ur and Ramallah hit the major Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway Route 443, running over Neria Leiter, who was operating alongside a cop, the military and police said.

Neria is the son of the Israeli Ambassador to the USA, Yechiel Leiter.

The ambassador's older son, Maj. Moshe Yedidya Leiter was killed in northern Gaza in November 2023.

His father said, “(Moshe)He died immediately, and there was no possibility to bring him to hospital and allow Israeli doctors to save his life. And there wasn’t a possibility for us to gather around his bed, say prayers, and mobilize the people of Israel to pray for his recovery."

Now the story is different.

“This experience is different from the night I received a knock at the door..."

"There is hope, his life is still in danger." He is currently in Shaare Tzedek after suffering a severe head injury.

I cannot imagine the horror of finding out that after losing your elder son, another son has been injured in a terror attack and his life now hangs in the balance.

And today, his father stood before the cameras and said something that has been sitting so heavily on my heart.

This time, there is hope, but with it comes the unbearable knowledge of what losing a son actually means.

Moshe Yedidya was 39 years old, a father of six, a reservist, and a man who was completing his medical training when he was killed in November 2023.

His younger brother Neria continued serving after his death, spending hundreds of days in the reserves, protecting the same people his brother had died protecting.

There are stories that make me angry, stories that make me frightened, and stories that remind me how much of the extraordinary sacrifice of ordinary Israeli families remains almost impossible to comprehend.

Because somewhere in Israel today, a father who has already buried one son is standing beside another, asking God to please, please let this time be different.

And we can do something for him.

We can pray.

Neria Dov ben Chana.

נריה דב בן חנה

Please take a moment and say his name.

Pray for his healing.

Pray for the doctors whose hands are working to save him.

And pray that this time, the Leiter family gets to bring their son home.

His father wrote on X "“I believe in the power of prayer, and I believe that when the people of Israel unite, miracles happen,” “Neria needs a miracle.”

“Palestinian terrorism seeks to uproot the people of Israel from their land,” Yechiel Leiter wrote. “They choose death – we choose life.”

רפואה שלמה לנריה דב בן חנה