Life Saving Cooperation in the Gaza Strip

The Palestinian town of Beit Hanoun sits right on Gaza’s northern border of with Israel, only about an hour’s drive from both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Only a decade ago, Palestinians commuted to work in both Israeli cities. Israelis visited Beit Hanoun for fish dinners.

But these days, Israeli citizens are banned from entering Gaza and it’s only the rare Palestinian who gets permission to visit Israel.

Chickens cluck outside the al-Kafarna house in Beit Hanoun. Odai welcomes me into his family’s home with a smile. We hit it off right away. Or, at least, I like to think so. Odai was only seven-months-old when we first met.

Despite the smile though, it was pretty clear that something was wrong. Odai was small for his age. He looked worn out. The problem was with his heart.

Doctors in Gaza told the al-Kafarna family the baby needed major surgery, the kind of operation that hospitals there could not do. So, after several weeks of making calls and filling out paperwork, Odai was scheduled to leave Gaza the next day for medical treatment at a hospital in Israel.

Odai’s grandfather, Mahmoud al-Kafarna, says everybody was trying to stay positive.

“We are still worried because until now, we don’t know,” he said. “Is he going to go with his grandmother, with his mother, with his father, we don’t know.”

It was decided that Odai would go with his grandmother, Haniya. She had been to Israel once before. But that was 20 years ago. It was another hospital visit with a sick child.

I asked Haniya if she spoke any Hebrew. “We say ‘salaam aleikum,’” she said. “They say ‘shalom.’” That was the extent of her Hebrew.

The family was not sure about details of the trip. They wondered if all the paperwork was in order. Would the Hamas border guards and then Israeli guards let the baby and his grandmother go through the border terminal? Would a taxi be waiting on the other side of the crossing for the trip to the hospital?

But there was not much choice. The family knew Odai’s case was serious.

“Since he was born, he has had difficulty breathing,” Ali al-Kafarna, Odai’s father, said to me. He had just come home from the work site, where he was collecting construction rubble to be recycled. Ali makes a living doing manual labor, when he can find the work.

“What comes from God will be good, you know, I do believe in faith. So, I’m still worried, but I just depend on my God and on the doctors,” Ali said.

Later that night, the al-Kafarnas got a phone call from the hospital in Israel. Everything was set. Haniya and Odai had a green light to travel to the hospital.

First thing the next morning, the baby and his grandmother, along with both of his parents, all piled into the car for the short drive to the Erez border crossing. Aunts, uncles, cousins and neighbors come outside to say goodbye.

Getting into Israel from Gaza begins with a passport and security check on the Palestinian side. Then there is a mile-long walk through a fenced-in sidewalk. It has a metal roof and it leads up to the Israeli-run border terminal. Odai’s parents had to say goodbye at start of the walkway.

There were lots of hugs, kisses and tears. Then, Haniya started the walk toward Israel. Odai was in her arms, falling asleep.

About 20 minutes later came the Israeli security check.

The border terminal at Erez feels like the security check at an airport, only there is more machinery and less face-to-face interaction with security officers. Unseen Israeli border guards speak to travelers through an intercom.

Travel documents are checked. Some questions are asked. All told, the procedure took about an hour for Haniya and Odai to get from Gaza, through the border-crossing terminal, and into Israel. That was faster than most.

A taxi was waiting for them and another half-dozen Palestinian medical patients. By mid-morning, Haniya and Odai arrived at the hospital outside of Tel Aviv. Then, after another security check to enter the hospital, they walked into the waiting room at the Wolfson Medical Center for children with heart problems.

Odai was a patient with an Israeli non-profit Save a Child’s Heart. It treats children from the West Bank and Gaza. Spokeswoman Tamar Shapira explained that the program also treats, “Iraqi children, children from Romania, from Indonesia, from Zanzibar, Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana.”

Since 1996, the organization has operated on more than 2,600 children with congenital heart conditions from poor countries. About half of their patients over the years, like Odai from Gaza, have been Palestinian kids.

One of the doctors working on Odai’s case was Akiva Tamir. While the vast majority of Israelis have almost no personal contact with Palestinians anymore, Tamir is an exception.

He has worked closely with Palestinian children and families for 15 years.

“I think I have treated in my life more Palestinians than Israelis. They are my patients, like any other patients,” Tamir told me before examining Odai and the other new arrivals. “I don’t think that we Israelis hate Palestinians in general. And I don’t see hatred from their side. Down to earth, the people would rather cooperate and help each other and live a quiet life together, from both sides. It’s politics that’s the problem,” Tamir said.

And at times, he admits that it’s been difficult to completely separate himself and his work from the harsh political reality that’s defined Israel’s relationship to Gaza in recent years.

“We had difficult days,” Tamir said. “In Gaza, they deliberately bombed a school bus of Israeli children before we left Gaza. And on the same day, Palestinian children from Gaza arrived to be treated here. You know, it crosses your mind that there, people kill our children and here we save their children. But except of that, we love the children. It doesn’t matter that they are Palestinians.”

In the examination room, Odai was not happy. He was agitated. Turned out he was running a fever. That made it harder for the doctors to run tests. But it was still clear what needed to happen. Outside the exam room, I talked with Odai’s grandmother, Haniya.

“I’m afraid,” she told me. “I’m worried about the baby. He needs surgery, a heart operation.”

“He has a hole in his heart,” Haniya said. “So, they will do an operation.”

The procedure to repair that hole between the left and right side of Odai’s heart would have to wait though. He had to rally — and especially get rid of that fever — before doctors could think about doing major surgery.

It was not clear how long that would take. For the time being at least, Odai and Haniya would have stay at the hospital in Israel. And hope for the best.

Referral of Patients from Gaza: Data and Commentary for 2010
The World Health Organization publishes data on Palestinians from the Gaza Strip seeking referrals for outside medical care. Its report for 2010 has some background on how the referral system works, along with some policy recommendations for improvements. The report breaks down what kinds of services Palestinians are receiving, where they are getting those services and how much they cost. Most of the travel permits – 86% according to the WHO – for Palestinians in Gaza are sponsored by the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Non-governmental organizations – like Save a Child’s Heart – make up the difference.