In the summer of 2025, Israelis had cause for despair. Forty eight living and dead hostages languished in Gaza. In the wake of Israel’s military response to the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister and for a former Defense Minister on charges of war crimes. Israeli tourists were advised by their government to avoid conspicuous signs of “Israeliness” while abroad and to refrain from posting their whereabouts on social media. Following the murders of two Jewish worshippers at a Manchester synagogue in the United Kingdom, Police in Birmingham, citing fears of further violence, announced that Israeli fans would be barred from attending a League Europa soccer match.
Amid the distress, and hardly noticed by the hostile world outside its borders, Israel’s Tel Aviv University announced that it was preparing to perform the world’s first human spinal cord implant.
Over 15 million people worldwide live with spinal cord injuries, preventing them from walking. Unlike other human tissues, spinal cord neurons cannot naturally regenerate. The implant procedure, if successful, will replace damaged spinal cord material with lab-grown material that will fuse with tissue above and below the injury, creating new pathways for nerve signals to travel.
This pioneering medical procedure would merit attention under any circumstances. But the fact that it emerged from a tiny country ostracized by much of the world, and under attack on many fronts by terrorist bands, makes it all the more extraordinary. This is especially so because the spinal cord advance is only one of a number of healthcare innovations emanating from Israel at the very time it endures international ostracism and confronts threats to its survival.
Many of these dramatic advances have arisen from its war with Hamas. As the New York Post reported last year:
From surgical robots that remove bullets and shrapnel to 3D-printed prosthetics tailored for rapid deployment, to a battlefield burn treatment developed from pineapples, [Israeli] technologies are redefining modern medicine and saving lives.
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