Thrown into a tank after being riddled with seven bullets in Gaza, the 23-year-old Israeli soldier kept his hand on his mortally wounded Dutch Shepherd through the entire ride to the hospital, even as he drifted into unconsciousness.

“I kept hoping that he was OK even as I felt my organs were popping out of my body,” Ben Ladany told JNS in an interview in Herzliya on Wednesday of his beloved IDF counter-terrorism dog, Jack.

For the next two months, Ladany lay in an induced comatose at Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon with severe stomach and leg wounds, as a fungus infection set in his body. He had repeated dreams of fighting Hamas in Gaza with Jack at his side.