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February 28, 2014 6:00 pm
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Wounded IDF Soldier Proposes to Girlfriend on Stage of FIDF Gala (VIDEO)

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avatar by JNS.org

IDF Cpt. Ziv Shilon, FIDF Greater Miami Vice President Oscar Feldenkreis, and Adi Sitbon on stage Thursday as Shilon proposes to Sitbon, his longtime girlfriend. Photo: Carlos Chattah.

JNS.orgIsrael Defense Forces (IDF) Captain Ziv Shilon, who lost his arm when an explosive device detonated near him while on patrol near the Gaza border in October 2012, proposed to his longtime girlfriend Adi Sitbon in front of more than 1,000 people at the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) greater Miami Chapter Solidarity Gala on Thursday.

“FIDF says that our job is to protect Israel; their job is to give us the reason. I wanted to take this opportunity to ask my girlfriend, Adi, just one question. You are my hope, my rock, and my everything. I wanted to ask you, will you marry me?” Shilon told his girlfriend on stage. After an emotional “yes” from Sitbon, a video message from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was aired, in which he congratulated the couple.

A battalion commander in the Givati brigade, Shilon was scanning an area near Kibbutz Kissufim (which is adjacent to Gaza in the Negev desert) for explosives the day he was injured. Fearing sniper fire, he had left his forces behind him. The device detonated as he attempted to open a gate. Severely injured and scared of a possible kidnapping, like what had happened to former Hamas captive Gilad Shalit, Shilon somehow managed to pick up his right hand, placed it on top of his barely hanging left hand, and ran back to his soldiers.

Since then, therapists at the Chicago Rehabilitation Institute have been working to fit him with a better prosthetic hand that would grant him more independence. Shilon was profiled by JNS.org in May 2013.

“Climb one hill at a time. Don’t try to cross Mount Everest. It’s not possible to think that in three months you can go back to the way things were if you lost both your legs. You need to create small goals along the way for yourself, and go step by step until you can climb the entire Empire State Building,” he told JNS.org in that article.

Watch a video of the proposal below:

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