Osher Twito's other leg said safe from amputation

Two land near Sapir College; IDF troops blow up buildings used by terrorists in northern Gaza.

By JUDY SIEGEL, YAAKOV KATZ
erez crossing 224.88 (photo credit: AP [file])
erez crossing 224.88
(photo credit: AP [file])
Osher Twito, the eight-year-old Sderot boy who lost his left leg to a Kassam rocket on Saturday evening, will apparently keep his right leg, Sheba Medical Center sources said on Thursday. The boy, who had been kept sedated since his injury, has been allowed to regain consciousness. He is breathing on his own but has not spoken yet. Osher is getting a powerful painkiller via an epidural, and has not been told he lost a leg. He will need to undergo a series of operations, and a long rehabilitation - including getting a prosthetic leg. His 19-year-old brother Rami is improving in the same hospital. He has both his legs, but will nevertheless have to undergo more surgery. The brothers were transferred to Sheba on Sunday because Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon, where they were first hospitalized, does not have the rehabilitation facilities needed by Osher. Rami was visited on Thursday by a delegation from the Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer team. Two team executives were accompanied by general manager Avi Nimni and players Rudi Haddad and Yossi Shivchon. Also on Thursday, IDF Engineering Corps units destroyed empty buildings on the Palestinian side of the Erez Industrial Zone in controlled explosions. The buildings, just inside the northern Gaza Strip, had been used as cover by terrorists who fired mortars at Israel. Five Kassam rockets struck the western Negev; one woman went into shock when a rocket hit an open field near Sderot. Two rockets landed near Sapir Academic College.