Schoolmates from the Florida Jewish school where 16-year-old Daniel Wultz is a student gathered yesterday at Tel Aviv's Sourasky Medical Center to recite prayers for his speedy recovery. Wultz was injured two weeks ago in the Tel Aviv bombing. His father, Yekutiel (Tuly), who sustained light wounds in the incident, also participated in the service, and spoke about the attack in his first public appearance since the April 17 bombing.

"Unfortunately, I remember everything," Tuly told reporters in the hospital corridor, just outside the entrance to the intensive care unit where his son is still hospitalized. "After the bomb went off... I saw the extent of [Daniel's] injuries and asked him to lie down on the floor until the ambulance came.
 

"I held his hand and told him that I loved him," Tuly, who was born in Israel, added. "Then he told me he loved me too, and those were his last words."

Daniel, who was visiting Israel with his parents for the Passover vacation, was enjoying a shawarma lunch with his father when the bomb exploded in Tel Aviv. The two had chosen the small restaurant near the old bus station, the site of the attack, after their taxi driver had recommended it as a tasty, kosher-for-Passover shawarma joint.

On Tuesday of last week, Daniel regained consciousness for the first time since the attack. Daniel is still on a respirator, and although he cannot speak, he is able to communicate with those around him. According to Professor Gabi Barabash, director of Sourasky, Daniel was one of the first casualties to reach the hospital after the explosion. His first operation lasted 12 hours; another four have since been performed.

Since his admission some two weeks ago, Daniel has lost a kidney, his spleen and part of his right leg below the knee. In his first operation, Daniel lost nearly 100 blood units, and since he was admitted, the medical staff has replaced his total volume of his blood three times. He is still "fighting for his life," say hospital officials.

"His situation is still critical," Dr. Dror Sofer, chairman of the center's trauma department said yesterday. "This was a very complex injury in many parts of his body, and it will take a long time to know how and if he's going to make it."

Daniel, a top student who loves basketball and hopes to one day become a rabbi, has become increasingly affiliated with the local Chabad movement in the past year. His rabbi, Yisroel Spalter, of the Chabad community in Weston, Florida, where the Wultz family lives, flew in last week to be at his bedside.

"He came in straight from the airport and put tefillin on Daniel," says close family friend Caryn Zadik of Rabbi Spalter. "It was electrifying. It was like a jolt for the family."

The eighth graders at David Posnack Hebrew Day School in Plantation, Florida, where Daniel is in the tenth grade, arrived here Wednesday for a two-week school trip that had been planned before the attack. Although parents had originally asked that their children stay out of the Tel Aviv area, special arrangements were made for the teens to pray at the hospital for their friend and schoolmate.

"It means a lot to be here and to be close to him," said Bari Rosenberg, 14, a student at the Jewish day school. "I feel like we are doing a really good deed and that praying for him is really important, especially since he believes in prayer."

Although he hasn't received much media attention in Israel, Daniel's story is given almost daily coverage in the two South Florida newspapers, the Miami Herald and the Sun Sentinel. The U.S. ambassador to Israel, Richard Jones, visited him recently, and the 16-year-old has also received autographed photos from his favorite NBA team, the Miami Heat. Packages filled with cards, picture and other gifts stream in daily, friends say.

In the meantime, as Tuly said, the prayers "give Daniel the energy to fight and give us support. Think positively about Daniel because the energy helps everyone; it helps Daniel and it helps us.

"Emotionally, it is difficult, but we have a lot of faith," he added. "We see the whole world praying with us. Keep it up. It's working."