A Manhattan-based nonprofit is helping Israeli October 7 attack survivors by flying them to New York for medical treatment.

"New York has cutting edge medical treatment and we partner with local hospitals like NYU, and they've been very helpful with prosthetics and surgeries that can only be done here," said Rabbi Uriel Viger, who founded the group Belev Echad. "Whatever they go through is what we go through. We are one nation, one heart." 

"I was the lone survivor"

Vigler said demand for Belev Echad's services has tripled since October 7. He says the group, whose name means "one heart," helps with physical and emotional wounds for people like Maya Desiatnik. 

Desiatnik spoke recently to students at American college campuses, including Rutgers University. Desiatnik found that sharing her story was therapeutic, Vigler said. 

"Most of them were killed in the combat room where I was the lone survivor," Desiatnik said during one college presentation, speaking of her time as an observer on October 7 at the Nahal Oz military base.

She says those who survived in other parts of the base were kidnapped.

"[I was] alive and breathing and weaponless and they know that," she said about the attack by Hamas terrorists.  "I was coughing blood I was coughing black stuff, and it was terrifying."

Desiatnik is also getting help from Belev Echad in managing her post traumatic stress disorder.   

"We do everything we can to help them"

"I have now a nerve problem in my ankle and in Israel that they had a few solutions but they were not really good so I came here," said Imri Rong, a now-wounded veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces.

He says he started in a wheelchair and soon hopes to walk again without assistance.

"We all feel the pain, and the war affects us all, and we do everything we can to help them," said Vigler.