Israel salutes parents of Palestinian child organ donor
AFP
Date: 11-07-05
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel's parliamentary speaker Reuven Rivlin has hailed the Palestinian parents who donated their 12-year-old son's organs after he was shot dead by Israeli soldiers as he carried a toy gun.
"This remarkable gesture... despite the war and conflict without solution for nearly 100 years, must be noted," Rivlin told parliament.
"We salute your gesture," he said to the boy's father, Ismail al-Khatib.
Khatib said the decision to donate his son Ahmed's organs for transplant stemmed from a desire to answer violence with a concrete gesture of peace.
"I have taken this decision because I have a message for the world: that the Palestinian people want peace -- for everyone," he told AFP on Sunday.
"We have no problem whether it is an Israeli or a Palestinian (who receives his organs) because it will give them life," said the boy's mother, Ablah al-Khatib.
Khatib was shot last Wednesday during clashes in the northern West Bank town of Jenin, when Israeli troops mistook the plastic gun he was holding for a real weapon and opened fire.
He was rushed to a local hospital with serious head and stomach wounds, then transferred to hospital in northern Israel where he died on Saturday.
His organs have been transplanted into five Israeli children aged seven months, four, five, 12 and 14 years, as well as a 58-year-old woman.
The Israeli army expressed regret for Ahmed's shooting during clashes with Palestinian militants in Jenin.
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