Organs of boy killed by Israeli soldiers donated to Israeli patients

PETAH TIKVAH, Israel: A Palestinian couple whose son died after being shot by Israeli soldiers donated his organs yesterday to three Israeli patients desperately waiting for transplants. Ismail Khatib said his decision to donate his son Ahmed’s organs was rooted in his memories of his own brother, who died at 24 waiting for a liver transplant, and in his family’s desire to help others, regardless of their nationality. “I don’t mind seeing the organs in the body of an Israeli or a Palestinian. In our religion, God allows us to give organs to another person and it doesn’t matter who the person is,” said Khatib, who added that he hoped the donation would send a message of peace to Israelis and Palestinians.

Ahmed, 12, was shot by Israeli soldiers Thursday while they were conducting a raid in the West Bank town of Jenin. The soldiers said they mistook the boy for a militant during a shootout and later discovered he was carrying a toy rifle. Ahmed was brought to an Israeli hospital and was put on life support. He died of his wounds late Saturday and his parents quickly agreed to donate his organs. Yesterday, three Israeli girls — two of them Jewish and the other Druse — underwent surgery to receive his lungs, heart and liver. Twelve-year-old Samah Gadban had been waiting for a heart for five years when doctors called her family late Saturday and told them of the donation. By yesterday afternoon, the Druse girl had a new heart and was recovering at Schneider Children’s Medical Centre in the Israeli town of Petah Tikvah.

Samah’s mother sat by her bed holding her hand, while her father, Riad Gadban, juggled phone calls from friends and relatives in the cardiac intensive care unit’s waiting room. Gadban called Khatib’s decision to donate his son’s organs a “remarkable gift.” “This morning, I did not know anything about the boy. I only knew that the doctors said they had a heart,” Gadban said. He heard Ahmed’s story while his daughter was in surgery. “I don’t know what to say. It is such a gesture of love.” Khatib said he hoped to meet the recipients of his son’s organs to ensure that they were healthy. “The most important thing is that I see the person who received the organs, to see him alive.” Samah’s family will invite Khatib and his family to a party they plan to throw when she leaves the hospital, Gadban said.

“I want to thank him and his family. With their gift, I would like for them to think that my daughter is their daughter,” Gadban said. The national transplant centre reported that a 14-year-old Jewish girl received Ahmed’s lungs and a seven-month-old girl was in surgery yesterday evening receiving his liver. The family of the 14-year-old girl declined to be interviewed and the baby’s parents were awaiting the outcome of their daughter’s surgery and unavailable for comment. Israel has a chronic shortage of donor organs that many medical officials attribute to Jewish religious taboos against such donations. Esty Katz, a spokeswoman for Rambam Hospital in Haifa, which harvested Khatib’s organs, said Khatib’s decision was unexpected and appreciated. “Sometimes you think for sure they won’t agree, they won’t donate. But then we have surprises,” she said.