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June 2, 2013 11:59 am
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Ten Year Old Palestinian Boy Saved by Israeli Doctors, Jewish Kidney Donor

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avatar by Algemeiner Staff

Yaacov and his father Samir, at the intensive care unit at Schneider Childern's Medical Center of Israel.

The life of a ten year old Palestinian boy was saved today thanks to Israeli doctors at the Schneider Medical Center in Petah Tikva, and a Jewish kidney donor.

The child, who suffered from kidney dysfunction, and was undergoing dialysis had been waiting for a kidney transplant. The boy is now recovering in the hospital’s ICU, and is in stable condition.

“For now we are very satisfied with his recovery,” a member of hospital staff told The Algemeiner, “within a few days he will go to a regular ward.”

The boy will still have to take medicine for the rest of his life, but won’t need dialysis multiple times a week which makes for very poor quality of life.

The father of the boy said that he had no words to thank the Jewish donor’s family and noted that, after many years waiting for a transplant, his son was receiving new life.

The boy is from a village near Hebron and is not a citizen of Israel.

Schneider Children’s Medical Center Spokesperson Riva Shaked told The Algemeiner in an interview that “it was a very overwhelming surprise” for the child and his parents, “because they weren’t prepared for it.”

“Of course they were very very happy,” Shaked said, “I heard the mother say, ‘its impossible, it’s impossible,’ she was overwhelmed.”

In the past said Shaked, “we talked about the possibility of the mother donating one of her kidneys to him.”

Explaining how the story came about the spokesperson explained, “We are the only transplant hospital for children in Israel and we knew about this kid, he came to see our doctors six months ago, and we knew he needed a kidney, so we called him.”

“In our hospital we treat all Israelis, both Jews and Arabs and also Palestinian children, and when a child is sick, it really doesn’t matter what his nationality or religion is, for us it is all the same, we want them to be healthy,” she explained.

“The vision of Mr. Schneider, who founded the hospital, was for it to be a bridge for peace, and from time to time we see it really happen,” Shaked concluded.

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