Israeli surgeons managed to perform the impossible this week and safely separated 1-year-old twins conjoined at the head. The surgery, which has only been completed about 20 times, was a success for the team of 50 at Soroka Medical Center. “It was a moment of weeping and laughter with the family,” Dr. Mickey Gideon, the head of pediatric neurosurgery at the hospital, told an Israeli news site. The twins were born last August and spent months under intensive monitoring before the 12-hour procedure. They are expected to make a full recovery, per The New York Times.

To plan for the operation, a team of experts in neurosurgery, plastic surgery, and brain imaging convened to form models of the brain and help expand the skin and tissue in the affected regions. The remarkable effort allowed for the best result: the children being held separately by their parents.

“They will see and eat; hands, feet, everything is fine,” the twins’ father said to Channel 12. “I was moved—this is the first time I lifted each one alone.”