Prestigious Israel Prize awarded to surgeon who treated hundreds of terror victims

Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch announced on Tuesday that this year’s Israel Prize will be awarded to Prof. Avraham Rivkind, a veteran surgeon who has treated hundreds of terrorism victims over his career.

Rivkind, who holds a senior position at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem, will receive the lifetime achievement award for his pioneering work in trauma care and his contributions to advancing Israel’s emergency medicine system.

“Prof. Rivkind is a pioneer in developing new medical approaches and tools for saving lives that have become an integral part of the State of Israel’s reality,” the prize committee stated. It added that he “embodies the values of the sanctity of life, love of humanity and the land, and high-quality, equitable public medicine.”

Miriam Peretz, who chairs the prize committee, stressed that the award is a recognition that Rivkind ranks among the Jewish state’s most prominent surgeons. The Israel Prize ranks as Israel’s highest civilian honor and will be awarded at Israel’s upcoming 78th Independence Day celebrations in April. 

Rivkind, the child of Holocaust survivors, began studying medicine in 1973 at the Hebrew University–Hadassah Medical School. After completing his studies, he began his residency in general surgery under Israel Prize laureates Prof. Natan Zalts and Prof. Arie Durst. He later underwent specialist training at the shock trauma unit at the University of Maryland in the United States.

He returned to Israel and played a central role in establishing the trauma unit at Hadassah Ein Kerem outside Jerusalem. Although the pioneering project initially faced skepticism, it opened in 1992 as Israel’s first trauma unit.

Over the course of his career, Rivkind has treated hundreds – and possibly thousands – of patients, including many critically wounded in terrorist attacks in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel. His work also extended internationally. In 1994, he assisted in treating victims of the bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. He later treated victims of terror attacks in Kenya, the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka, and a deadly snowstorm in Nepal in 2014.

The Iranian-backed terrorist attack against the Jewish community in Buenos Aires was the most lethal in Argentina’s modern history. Eighty-five people were murdered and more than 300 were injured in the attack. 

In April 2025, the Argentine prosecutor Sebastián Basso requested an international arrest warrant for the Iranian “supreme leader” Ali Khamenei for ordering the terrorist attack against the Jewish community in Argentina. 

Khamenei “led the decision to carry out a bomb attack in Buenos Aires in July 1994 and issued executive order (fatwa) 39 to carry it out,” Basso wrote. 

On Feb. 28, the Israeli Air Force eliminated Khamenei and some 40 top Iranian military and political leaders who convened at the supreme leader’s compound in Tehran. Israel also eliminated the Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) commander General Mohammad Pakpour.

The ayatollah regime subsequently appointed Ahmad Vahidi as the new and incumbent IRGC commander. Vahidi, who previously served as Iran’s interior minister, is currently wanted by international law enforcement for his involvement in the terrorist attack against the Jewish community center in Argentina.