Israeli security forces at the scene of a car-ramming attack near the Maccabim checkpoint in Samaria, where an IDF soldier was wounded, Sept. 23, 2026. Photo by Chaim Goldberg/Flash90.
By Joshua Marks
Neria Leiter, the son of Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter, remains in very serious condition after being injured in a Palestinian terror attack on Wednesday, Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center said on Thursday morning.
“He is in very serious condition, and there is still a danger to his life,” professor Alexander Ioscovich, the hospital’s deputy medical director general, told the Kan Reshet Bet radio station.
“We are doing what we can and hoping for the best,” he added.
Shaare Zedek Medical Center said on Wednesday night that Leiter had undergone complex brain surgery lasting several hours.
The Israel Defense Forces reserve soldier was wounded on Wednesday evening in a car-ramming attack at the Maccabim checkpoint on Route 443, near Modi’in.
The ambassador said on Wednesday that his son needed “a miracle.”
“I believe in the power of prayer, and I believe that when the people of Israel unite, miracles happen,” Leiter wrote on X.
The ambassador’s oldest son, Maj. Moshe Leiter, was killed in Gaza in 2023. The Israeli representative noted that Neria continued to serve in uniform after his brother’s death.
“Since Oct. 7, he has served hundreds of days in the reserves on multiple fronts,” the ambassador said, of Neria.
“Palestinian terrorism seeks to uproot the people of Israel from their land,” he stated. “They choose death. We choose life.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the Leiter family at the Jerusalem hospital on Wednesday evening before departing for the U.N. General Assembly in New York to deliver a speech, according to the Prime Minister’s Office.
Netanyahu asked the public to pray for the recovery of “Neria Dov ben [son of] Chana.”
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir on Wednesday ordered the IDF’s 98th Division headquarters to operate in Judea and Samaria and take command of the Judea and Etzion brigades, citing “the need to enhance security during this tense period.”
The move aims to strengthen command and control and to “enhance defensive and offensive capabilities” following “recent events” in the area, the IDF said.
Until now, the Judea and Etzion regional brigades reported to the Judea and Samaria Division, which oversees the entire area. The change is meant to ease the load on that division, according to local media.
In addition to Wednesday’s attack that seriously wounded Leiter, three days earlier Netanel Shukrun, a father of six from Alei Zahav, was murdered in a terrorist shooting at the Ein Raya spring in Samaria on the eve of Yom Kippur.
