The young man was killed in Jaffa area when terrorists attacked people with gun and knife resulting in at least 7 dead and 10 injured. Father Iona Karousi spoke to ERTNews about his son and the tragic incident. The 26-year-old studied architecture in Tel Aviv and was the son of the well-known professor of neurology at the University of Jerusalem, Dimitris Karousis. His father, in a really bad psychological state, described what exactly happened and how he was informed about the sudden loss of his child.
As he says, he could not hear from him as he had no battery on his mobile phone and at 12 at night he was informed by the authorities about the unpleasantness. With deep sadness he sends his own message about what is happening dramatically in the area with victims of innocent people.
“This madness also kills innocent people”
Specifically, he said “a student in the prime of his life, he went to do architecture work, he was at the trolley station and he was killed inside the station in Jaffa, Tel Aviv. And at 19:00 the terrorists went and shot him. We had no contact because he had no battery in his cell phone and they came here at 12 at night from the police and the army to notify us.
“I want to say that it is madness that both of them, one with the Koran and all with the Old Testament, are constantly looking to kill each other. This will never stop. And this madness also kills innocent people, people in the prime of their life, the best people.”
What the victim’s relative said
Relative of Tel Aviv terror attack victim speaks out. This is Iona Karousis, 25 years old, son of a well-known scientist in Jerusalem. “For five consecutive hours he had given no signs of life. We had one last hope when his parents went to the hospital to identify him, that maybe something had gone wrong. We prayed until the last moment. He was there because, as far as I know, as part of his studies, he was preparing a project in which he had to go to subway stations and take pictures. So he was literally in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Listen to his testimony on OPEN:
Ionas Karousis: Who was the 26-year-old who was killed in Tel Aviv
Ionas Karousis is among the victims of yesterday’s terrorist attack in the Jaffa area of Tel Aviv.
He is a Greek citizen, a resident of Jerusalem, originally from Thessaloniki, and his family is in mourning, just like the Greek community of the city.
The 26-year-old had dual citizenship (Greek and Israeli) and was the son of a well-known doctor in Jerusalem, the neurologist Dimitris Karousis, who left Thessaloniki in 1988 to live in Israel. The victim’s mother is also a doctor. Born on September 11, 1998, he went to elementary school at Hashalom Elementary School in Tel Aviv, then went on to school in Jerusalem majoring in English, Biology, and Arts. In 2020 he started his studies at the Faculty of Architecture of Tel Aviv University.
At the same time, he studied piano for 12 years at the Music Academy of Jerusalem, he loved basketball and sports, while from a young age he was involved in drawing and the arts. He spoke and wrote English, Hebrew and Greek. His father Dimitris Karousis is a professor specializing in Neurology and alongside him, at the Hadassah Hospital, Ionas had worked on a project dealing with the modern recording of patient information. Last April, 26-year-old Ionas was in Athens vacationing with his relatives and friends.
Who is the father of Iona Karousis, Dimitris
With a specialization in Neurology and Neuroimmunology, Dimitris Karousis is the director of the Multiple Sclerosis Center of the Neurology department of the Hadassah University Hospital, which has a pioneering project in stem cell therapy to present.
He went to Israel in 1988 with his wife Rania who is also a doctor and scientist. “What motivated me to come to this country is the scientific research, which is so developed here,” he said in an interview. He also stated: “the influence of the Greek Spirit is obvious in the people of Israel, even in their culture and religion. On the other hand, we as a people also took the element that perhaps we always lacked (despite the philosophy and sciences or the arts that we taught to the whole world): the element of faith beyond reason. The people here are – temperamentally – similar to us in Greece and they love our country and our culture and music unimaginably. So they embraced us with love and accepted us as true friends.”
He started through a fellowship and went on to complete his doctorate at the Hebrew University and at the same time his clinical residency in Neurology at the Hadassah University Hospital. Since then he has been working at this hospital and since 1995 he has been a senior Consulting Neurologist there.
In 2003 he became a Professor at the Hebrew University (the largest and most famous in Israel). After a few years he became a permanent Professor of the School of Medicine, while he was also elected president of the Israeli Society of Neuroimmunology. Since 2007 he has been the Director of the Multiple Sclerosis Center of Israel.
He has a permanent collaboration with the Aristotle University, from where he graduated, while from time to time he has also collaborated with hospitals in Athens such as the “Iasso” Hospital and also with scientific institutions, such as Pasteur.
“Being Greek is not a word in identity. It is, in my opinion, a heavy and honorable heritage that we must not and cannot renounce. We carry it within us wherever we are. The spirit of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, as well as the great leaders of Orthodoxy and our faith, married to Elytis, Cavafy and Kazantzakis are alive and – unintentionally or intentionally – guide our thinking and steps. After all, this is what makes us many times (and especially when we are abroad) different and approach the world and life with a different eye and perspective…
This immortal Greek – but also Christian – Spirit we have the “sacred mission” to convey to everyone around us, since it is something that is missing that our world needs today (and which, in my opinion, is a necessary element in science as well ). As the wise Solomon says: “Faith and science of fixing the times”. It is our duty to transfer it and keep it untarnished to the new generations as well”, Dimitris Karousis has also stated about his work and course.
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