Palestinian couple donate dead son’s organs to Israelis
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 Mr Khatib, who said he hoped the donation would send a message of peace to Israelis and Palestinians.
Ahmed, 12, was shot by Israeli soldiers on 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, later discovering 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 on Saturday and his parents quickly agreed to donate his organs.
Today, 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 and told them of the donation. By this 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.
Mr Gadban called Mr 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,” Mr 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.”
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