Fifteen-year-old students who witnessed a deadly explosion during a school trip in northern Israel have spoken publicly for the first time about the terrifying moments they treated wounded classmates and tried to save lives.
What was supposed to be a routine annual outing for ninth-grade students from ORT Ma’alot Yeshiva turned into a tragedy when a powerful explosion struck the Ramim Ridge area. Their classmate, Elazar Yair Vilensky, was killed, and 25 people were injured. In a report broadcast by Channel 14, the students recounted the events leading up to the blast, their desperate efforts to help the wounded, and the difficult days that followed their friend's death.
The students said that earlier in the hike, Elazar had found and picked up an object. They did not initially consider it dangerous, explaining that they were accustomed to finding missile debris in the Ma’alot area following the war. “We’re used to it in Ma’alot. We’ve been collecting all kinds of fragments since the war," one student recalled.
According to the students, Elazar continued handling the object as they walked. They did not connect it with any potential danger at the time, only revisiting the incident in their minds after the explosion. The blast occurred as the group was preparing to pray the afternoon service. The students described an explosion unlike anything they had heard before, followed by chaos as some people ran while others collapsed to the ground.
“I’ve never heard explosions like that in my life," one student said. Another initially believed that a terrorist attack had taken place, without realizing that the object Elazar had picked up earlier might have been connected to the explosion.
One student who was standing particularly close to the blast's epicenter recalled that his ears rang for approximately two minutes afterward. Around him, injured students lay on the ground as others tried to flee. Those who remained standing struggled to understand what had happened and how they could help their wounded friends. The students estimated that approximately 15 minutes passed before emergency responders arrived. During that time, they attempted to treat the injured with whatever supplies they could find.
One student called his father, a combat medic, described the situation and received instructions to focus on stopping the bleeding. He then began moving between the casualties, including a teacher who had been seriously wounded and was struggling to speak. To determine whether the teacher was conscious and able to respond, the student asked him to signal with his hand.
“Rabbi, give me a like," he told the teacher. When the teacher managed to respond, the student asked him to squeeze his hand as well, confirming that he was conscious before continuing to help others.
In another case, the student needed to stop a classmate's bleeding but lacked the necessary medical equipment. He used a belt to improvise a tourniquet, while other students also removed their belts to help treat the wounded.
Several of the teenagers had themselves been injured in the explosion. One described shrapnel striking him near his neck and shoulder. Another suffered two shrapnel wounds to his leg and an additional injury to his hand. A third was wounded in the chest and head, with blood running from his head. Despite their own injuries and the shock of the incident, the students worked together to help their classmates.
“Everyone was a hero," one of them said, describing how the teenagers kept their composure and took on whatever tasks were needed, despite having no experience dealing with a disaster of that scale.
Yet alongside their accounts of courage and quick thinking, the students also spoke about the loss of Elazar, the friend who never returned from the trip.
“He was a very happy boy, very funny, very curious," one classmate recalled. “Whenever we wanted to do things with friends, whenever we wanted to have fun, we knew we had to call him."