He served his country as a combat soldier, survived the Supernova music festival massacre of Oct. 7, and conquered cancer. Now facing cancer for the second time, Raz Peri continues to fight battles on many fronts. However, it is his fight to inspire, to heal others, and to lead by example that truly defines him.
The 25-year-old spoke to the Magazine about his story, his pain, and how he is turning his pain into light.
Peri was born and raised in Holon to a Yemenite Jewish father and a Syrian Jewish mother. After school, he enlisted as a combat soldier in the Haruv Reconnaissance Unit of the IDF’s Kfir Brigade. There, he learned how to stay calm under pressure and make decisions in critical moments – skills that would ultimately save his life on the morning of Oct. 7, 2023.
Following his release from the military, Peri started a delivery and logistics business and managed dozens of employees. By his own admission, he felt “young, full of energy, and ready to face the world.”
This all changed when, at 23, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Wary of the conventional medical approach to treatment, he decided to embark on a natural healing journey and take control of his own recovery.
“From March 2023 until Oct. 7, I was reading research in English and Norwegian, learning to stimulate my lymphatic system, changing my diet, and practicing breathing, movement, and meditation,” he told the Magazine. “I was strictly disciplined. I went from someone who started the day with falafel for breakfast, a burger for lunch, and shwarma for supper to someone who fought for health in everything I did.”
He also sold his business because, in his words, “no profit is worth life.”
Surviving Nova
Although he is Shabbat observant, his friends begged him to join them at the Supernova music festival in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“Raz, come. We miss you. We want to dance with you,” they said.
Given his ongoing battle with cancer, Peri decided to arrive later than the others and drive down from Holon on Saturday morning.
“At 6:30 a.m., I arrived at Route 232. I wasn’t going to a party; I was going to a war,” he said.
Since the Hamas massacre, Route 232 has come to be known in Israel as Kvish Hadamim (“the bloody road”). The highway led directly to the site of the music festival and runs past the Re’im, Be’eri, and Kfar Aza kibbutzim, each of which suffered devastating tragedies during the attack.
Peri never arrived at the party, as rocket sirens above forced residents and travelers into shelters. Peri entered a shelter in Kibbutz Mefalsim with four people: Shlomi Davidovitz, Shiraz and Adir Tamam, and Celine Nagar.
At the same time as Peri entered Kibbutz Mefalsim, so did about 30 terrorists from Hamas’s elite Nukhba Force.
“Suddenly, we heard gunshots. I said, ‘Did you hear that?’ A resident with us said it was far away, but I knew it was close. A minute or two later, we heard screams and cries in Arabic, ‘Kill the Jews, Allahu Akbar,’ over and over. Panic struck everyone; someone said, ‘I have kids. What do we do?’
“I told myself, ‘Raz, you’re 25, have cancer, served in Haruv Recon: Try to save them.’”
Peri took command. When a terrorist burst in, Peri said he saw the Kalashnikov barrel enter the shelter, and he punched the terrorist below the belt. He dropped his weapon, and the two engaged in a struggle.
“He dragged me outside, shouting, ‘Jew!’ I turned and saw dozens of attackers surrounding a van, shooting everywhere. The barrel hit my ribs; I fell backward. I heard bullets whistling. The terrorist was shot by some of the bullets aimed at me [and died instantly].”
Peri then crawled back into the shelter, and the terrorists threw grenades in after him. The shrapnel went through Peri’s legs and arms and into his side, but he remained conscious. The older man in the shelter had lost a leg to the blast, and Peri conjured up his military training to make a tourniquet. As one man tried to leave, the terrorists sprayed bullets at him and his wife, killing both.
Peri survived by hiding under the woman’s corpse and playing dead. The terrorists continued to fire into the shelter, hitting the woman’s body, some of which penetrated into Peri’s stomach. More grenades. More gunfire.
“The smoke, fear, and pain – we became human shields for each other,” he told the Magazine. “I lost consciousness for about 15 minutes. When I came to, everything around me was black, smoky, bloody, and filled with dead bodies.
He told the surviving two – the woman and the older man – “If I don’t return in the next few minutes, you’ll know something happened to me.” Peri then ran through fields, climbed a building, and knocked on the door of a house in Mefalsim, all while gushing blood. Along the way, he saw bodies strewn across the street, and women with their pants pulled down.
He said that the decision to run saved his life, as 10 minutes after he left, another group of terrorists entered the shelter and killed the others.
In the kibbutz, no one answered the first two doors that Peri knocked on, but the third door opened. He entered the house, lay down on a couch and tried to call his friend Yaniv, who was at the music festival, but there was no signal.
“The only option seemed to be to prepare for death,” he said.
Suddenly, a man came out from one of the rooms with a drawn knife and asked Peri in Arabic, “What’s your name?”
“I said, ‘Raz, a Jew.’”
The man was the owner of the house. He took Peri to his safe room and tried to keep him conscious for hours. At 12:30 p.m., IDF soldiers arrived and asked Peri if he could run.
“I fell from blood loss and adrenaline. They put me on a chair outside; the strong sun weighed me down; I cried out to God. They evacuated me in an armored ambulance. On the way, we were shot at, but we managed to evade.”
Peri arrived at Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot, where he began his “grueling” six months of physical and emotional healing. He moved between hospitals until finally ending up at Hadassah-University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem.
“In the first month at Kaplan, they treated external wounds and burns,” he recalled. “Fourth-degree burns from the event, gunshot wounds to my abdomen, and shrapnel throughout my body – not just legs, but lungs, muscles, skin. Everywhere.
“Fourth-degree burns were a trauma in themselves: damaged skin, risk of infection, long treatments, and unimaginable pain. Every external wound required cleaning, dressing, and repeated treatments.”
Chemotherapy - a turning point
In between Kaplan and Hadassah, Peri was transferred to Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, which he called his “breaking point” because there, he began chemotherapy for the first time.
“After two cycles, my body wight dropped to 35 kg.,” he told the Magazine. “Doctors told my parents, ‘He has a week left.’”
With those words, Peri said he “felt the world stop.”
Doctors gave him multiple painkillers, such as morphine and 100-mg. fentanyl patches. “It was possibly to dull the knowledge of my approaching death,” he said, adding that the painkillers fogged his brain, eliminating the pain but leaving him numb and unable to function. It was unsustainable.
A turning point occurred when a family friend visited him and told him he had a choice: “life or the other side.”
“I said, ‘I choose life.’ He said, ‘Remove the painkillers. Let your brain work. Pain signals to you where you need to fight.’”
Peri left Ichilov the next day. Hope seemed lost, he said, until he received a call from Dr. David Lavie at Hadassah, who wanted to examine him.
“I arrived in critical condition, in a wheelchair, weighing 32 to 35 kg., blood tests dire. Dr. Lavie didn’t just check chemotherapy; he examined all the wounds from Oct. 7. He found what four hospitals hadn’t: a hole in my lung caused by a bullet, which explained the repeated respiratory failure that hadn’t been treated before. He looked me in the eyes and said, ‘You will live. I believe in you.’ That belief gave me strength,” he recounted.
At Hadassah, Peri underwent two major thoracic surgeries to repair the hole in his lung and remove damage from bullets and the shrapnel. He remained connected to two chest drains for six weeks, in enormous pain. After that, he began rehabilitation, which included intensive breathing therapy, daily physiotherapy, strengthening exercises, dressing changes for burns, and shrapnel removal.
“Every step, every sit, every stand was a victory,” he told the Magazine.
After six chemotherapy treatments at Hadassah, the PET-CT scan came out completely clean, and Peri was in remission. He said this was a very important moment for him, both medically and emotionally, and that “his soul was already crying out for freedom.”
He said that in those moments, he truly understood the meaning of family.
“Family never leaves you. They stay by your side every second; they fight with you even when you can’t fight alone. Their support was the force that filled me and gave me a reason to continue.”
A mission
He said he emerged from those six months with scars but also with a mission.
“My dream is to write a book about it titled You Chose Life: From Darkness to Light.”
But the book would only be the start. He said he wants to establish an awareness and support center to give patients and families what he didn’t get: true knowledge about proper nutrition, mind-body connection, lymphatic system work, and controlled use of cannabinoids (CBD, CBN, and CBG), alongside conventional medicine. He also wants it to be a place that supports families as they watch their loved ones go through horrendous suffering.
“I say this simply: It’s not just about patients; it’s about families. Family is like oxygen for the patient. Family can make the difference between falling and surviving.”
Since then, Peri has been telling his story. In the past six months, he has given more than 70 lectures to “anyone willing to listen.”
“In each lecture, people leave with enlightened eyes and new life perspectives,” he said. “This is my victory: turning pain into light that illuminates others.”
He told the Magazine that sharing his story is both painful and empowering. “On one hand, it takes me back to the hard moments. But on the other hand, it gives me a lot of strength because I see how much it touches other people and gives them hope and meaning.”
The cancer is back
But Peri has yet another battle to fight.
The lymphoma returned two and a half months ago and is much more aggressive than before.
He went to the US for advanced treatment but had to return on an emergency flight. He began chemotherapy again last Tuesday at Hadassah, but he said that the treatments are “more aggressive,” his body is “far more exhausted,” and the cost – mental and financial – is “overwhelming.” He now has several more months of chemotherapy ahead of him, with the possibility of advanced treatments later on.
Peri is not just fighting the physical effects of cancer or the physical toll of his injuries from Oct. 7 but also the psychological aftermath and trauma.
“I face not just the disease but the aftermath of the war,” he said. “Fourth-degree burns, shrapnel throughout my body causing pain with every movement, abdominal pain reminding me daily of the bullet that entered me. And worst of all, the mind.”
“Flashbacks, survivor’s guilt, anxiety, difficulty sleeping – these all drain my strength. The body can heal slowly, but the mind requires constant support, therapy, and mental treatments that are hard to access,” he said.
The emotional healing is no less difficult than the physical, Peri added. He copes through family, friends, faith, writing, playing music, and a “constant desire to inspire others.”
His family also continues to be his strength and support, but it is a difficult situation. Peri’s treatments are expensive: He needs many medications, advanced treatments abroad, complementary therapies, and rehabilitation, all of which cost a lot.
A crowdfunding campaign [link below] was opened to fundraise for him to cover treatment costs and to advance his vision to build something that will help many others.
“Every donation, every share, every kind word saves lives,” he told the Magazine.
“I’m not asking for pity. I’m asking for a chance. A chance to live, to fight, and to continue turning pain into light.
“I share this not for attention but because it is my truth. I want this story to work for others: to teach, to inspire, to help establish something that changes lives and provides information no one gave me when I needed it most,” he said.
Learn more: giveback.co.il/project/85727?lang=en