Singer and songwriter Idan Amedi took the stage on Wednesday evening for the first time since he was seriously injured in operational activity in the Gaza Strip a year ago.

The show, which took place at the Pais Arena Hall in Jerusalem in the presence of 8,000 spectators, began with Amedi performing a rendition of the song "Superman."

Amedi recited the Shecheheyanu blessing in a broken voice. The audience cheered and responded with "Amen."

"Where do you start, where do you begin an evening like this? Thank you so much for being here," Amedi said. In response, the audience sang "Happy Birthday" as Amedi celebrated his birthday on Wednesday.

Amedi continued, "I thought a lot about where you start an evening like this. Maybe on January 8th, 2024, in the afternoon. I arrived at Sheba Hospital, burned and covered in soot, sedated and intubated, with a tag on my wrist that read 'Unknown, aged 22.' Do you remember that? A whole lifetime in one year. You ask what one goes through in a year like that? You die—and then suddenly you’re granted life again. You thank the good Lord that the shrapnel missed your spinal cord by two millimeters so you can walk again. And then you argue with Him the very next morning because He took your friends. And then you try to rise from the grief, the pain, surgeries, treatments, doctors, one press conference. And poof. You’re home in your room. You start picking up the pieces."

Amedi revealed, while holding back tears, his feelings when he returned home from the fighting and wrote a will for his children. "Weeks after October 7th, I drove home for the first time," Amedi recounted during the performance. "Those were days when there were lots of videos online of fathers arriving at kindergartens and schools to pick up their kids."

He continued, "On the way home, I was overwhelmed with thoughts—about everything we had seen, where all this was heading, about the ground incursion, and who would make it back."

Amedi spoke about the moment he realized he might not return from the fighting. "That night, still wearing my army pants, I put my daughter Yaeli to sleep. The moment she fell asleep, I took out my phone and wrote a will for my children."

Fans who arrived at the hall found a letter and a Superman pin on their seats. "These words I write months before the first show," the letter read, "with a million questions about how you even return to standing on a stage again… Thank you for being here."