This one flew by under the radar: The boy who was shot by the IDF because he was wielding a toy gun during a firefight with terrorists died, and his parents donated his organs. They went to six Israelis.
The vital organs of a Palestinian boy mistakenly killed by the Israel Defense Forces last week have been transplanted into the bodies of six Israelis, after the boy’s family donated his organs “for the sake of peace between peoples,” Israel Radio reported.
Ahmed al-Khatib, 12, was fatally shot during clashes in Jenin last week, when IDF troops mistook the toy gun he carried for a real rifle.
Three Israeli girls, two Jewish and one Druze, underwent surgery Sunday to receive Al-Khatib’s 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 Al-Khatib donation. By Sunday afternoon, the Druze girl had a new heart and was recovering at Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Petah Tikvah.
[…] Dr. Tzvi Ben-Yishai, spokesman for Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, where Al-Khatib had been treated, said the boy’s parents decided to donate his organs “to bring hearts closer and bring peace closer.”
“I don’t mind seeing the organs in 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 Jamal al-Khatib, the boy’s father, who added that he hoped the donations would send a message of peace to Israelis and Palestinians.
Stories like this are still rare, but they seem to be happening more frequently. Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?
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