Category Archive » Humanitarian Aid

Moti Kahan (photo: Yitzhak Benhorin)

Moti Kahana ‘can’t sit still as women and children being butchered nearby’; Syrian rebel: American airstrikes would bring Assad’s regime to collapse

As many in Israel are concerned over the possibility that the civil war raging in Syria will spill over to the Golan Heights and strengthen the standing of Hezbollah, some Israelis regard the crisis in the neighboring country from another angle entirely.

Jerusalem native Moti Kahana heads a group of Israeli businessmen and American Jews who travel to the Syrian refugee camps to provide humanitarian aid to victims of one of the era’s bloodiest conflicts. “We are Jews and Israelis and we can’t sit still as women and children are being butchered nearby,” he told Ynet.

Kahana took part in an annual conference of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where he raised the flag of the Free Syrian Army during a speech by an opposition activist. “While I’m here to assist the Free Syria movement, my brother Steve is on reserve service at the Golan Heights, treating injured Syrians,” said Kahana, who lives in New Jersey but has family in Israel.

“We said that the Holocaust will not happen again and I do not wish to compare, but people are dying next to us and we cannot sit still,” he added.

Since the group’s activity has started two years ago Kahana invested over $100,000 of his personal funds, and helped raise over half a million dollars from US Jews. “For me entering Syria is like arriving to Tel – Aviv,” he said. “We raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past two years and I’m tasked with transferring donations to liberal organizations in Syria.”

Kahana says the organization started as a charity operated by him and a number of friends, but they could not foresee how long the conflict would run. “When we ran out of money we started raising funds from US synagogues,” he told Ynet.

“We said that the Holocaust will not happen again and I do not wish to compare, but people are dying next to us and we cannot sit still,” he added.

Since the group’s activity has started two years ago Kahana invested over $100,000 of his personal funds, and helped raise over half a million dollars from US Jews. “For me entering Syria is like arriving to Tel – Aviv,” he said. “We raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past two years and I’m tasked with transferring donations to liberal organizations in Syria.”

Kahana says the organization started as a charity operated by him and a number of friends, but they could not foresee how long the conflict would run. “When we ran out of money we started raising funds from US synagogues,” he told Ynet.

“A few American aerial strikes will cause Assad’s regime to collapse. Indeed, Israel has carried out an attack with surgical precision, without any problems” said Muaz Mustafa, one of the leaders of the Syrian diaspora in the US.

“Assad is never going to flee, and while he’s there the country’s being taken over by al-Qaeda on the one hand and Iran and Hezbollah on the other.”

Mustafa and his associate were optimistic regarding the possibility that a future democratic Syrian government will ease tensions with Israel.

“There is no reason one democracy should harbor hostilities to another, and if Israel agrees to territorial compromises in the Golan Heights, Syria can establish peace with Israel, because otherwise there is no animosity between the two peoples,” Mustafa declared.

Source: Ynetnews.com

Mohammed and his grandfather (Photo: AP)

Abandoned by parents, 3-year-old amputee Mohammed won the hearts of his doctors, who fundraise his medical bills

In his short life, Palestinian toddler Mohammed al-Farra has known just one home: the yellow-painted children’s ward in Israel’s Tel Hashomer hospital.

Born in Gaza with a rare genetic disease, Mohammed’s hands and feet were amputated because of complications from his condition, and the 3 1/2-year-old carts about in a tiny red wheelchair. His parents abandoned him, and the Palestinian government won’t pay for his care, so he lives at the hospital with his grandfather.

“There’s no care for this child in Gaza, there’s no home in Gaza where he can live,” said the grandfather, Hamouda al-Farra.

“He can’t open anything by himself, he can’t eat or take down his pants. His life is zero without help,” he said at the Edmond and Lily Safra Children’s Hospital, part of the Tel Hashomer complex in the Israeli city of Ramat Gan.

Mohammed’s plight is an extreme example of the harsh treatment some families mete to the disabled, particularly in the more tribal-dominated corners of the Gaza Strip, even as Palestinians make strides in combatting such attitudes.

It also demonstrates a costly legacy of Gaza’s strongly patriarchal culture that prods women into first-cousin marriages and allows polygamy, while rendering mothers powerless over their children’s fate.

Mohammed was rushed to Israel as a newborn for emergency treatment. His genetic disorder left him with a weakened immune system and crippled his bowels, doctors say, and an infection destroyed his hands and feet, requiring them to be amputated.

In the midst of his treatment, his mother abandoned Mohammed because her husband, ashamed of their son, threatened to take a second wife if she didn’t leave the baby and return to their home in the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis, al-Farra said. In Gaza, polygamy is permitted but isn’t common. But it’s a powerful threat to women fearful of competing against newer wives.

Now Mohammed spends his days undergoing treatment and learning how to use prosthetic limbs.

His 55-year-old grandfather cares for him. Mohammed’s Israeli doctors, who’ve grown attached to the boy, fundraise to cover his bills, allowing him and his grandfather to live in the sunny pediatric ward.

But it’s not clear how long he’ll stay in the hospital, or where he’ll go when his treatment is complete. As a Palestinian, Mohammed is not eligible for permanent Israeli residency. Yet his family will not take the child back, the grandfather said. His parents, contacted by The Associated Press, refused to comment.

As his grandfather spoke, Mohammed used his knees and elbows to scamper up and down a nearby stairwell, his knees and elbows blackened and scarred from constant pressure. He used his arms to hold a green bottle he found in a stroller. His prosthetic legs with painted-on shoes were strewn nearby.

He crawled toward his grandfather’s lap. “Baba!” he shouted, Arabic for “daddy.” “Ana ayef,” he said – a mix of Arabic and Hebrew for “I’m tired.”

Dr. Raz Somech, the senior physician in the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer’s pediatric immunology department, attributes Mohammed’s genetic disorder to the several generations of cousin marriages in his family – including his parents.

Continue reading via Ynetnews.com

Iraqi patient Muhammad with his mother (Photo: Sheila Shalhevet)

Israel-based international organization Save a Child’s Heart coordinates arrival of children – 1, 4 and 5 – to Israeli hospital; 180 Iraqi children treated in Israeli operating rooms in recent decade

Interior Minister Gideon Sa’ar approved Sunday the arrival of three Iraqi children – aged one, four and five – to Israel, in order to receive lifesaving medical care at the Edith Wolfson Medical Center in Holon. The three are expected to arrive at the Israeli hospital within the next few days.

Sa’ar approved the children’s entrance to the country on grounds of humanitarian aid, promoted by Save a Child’s Heart, an Israel-based international project, which has so far coordinated cardiac surgeries for some 3,000 children from 44 countries.

Since 2004, Ynet learned, 180 Iraqi children have made it to Israel – 50 of them in the past two years.

At the moment, Israeli hospitals are treating children from Iraq, as well as from the Palestinian Authority, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Gana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Romania and China. Doctors and nurses from Tanzania, Ethiopia, the Palestinian Authority and Georgia are also taking part on the project and are undergoing training in Israeli hospitals.

Founded in 1996, SACH funds the children’s operations via donations and a special budget by the Regional Cooperation Ministry, headed by Silvan Shalom.

“This work produces a sense of fulfillment that is hard to put into words,” said Dr. Lior Sasson, the project’s lead surgeon and Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Wolfson Medical Center.

“We save children who would otherwise not have made it, because they could not get treatment. The ability to help parents from countries defined as ‘enemy countries’ and restore their hope after they’ve lost it is not at all obvious.”

Dr. Sasson added that during the Intifada the program continued to treat children from the Palestinian Authority: “Despite the animosity, that channel remained open. It breaks down barriers.”

Himself the son of Iraqi parents who immigrated to Israel when the country was founded, Sasson noted that through the project “We are in fact sowing seeds of peace with the country that my parents left.

“The father of an Iraqi child treated here in 2005 called me during the Second Lebanon War to see if we’re ok. He wanted to see how we were and was worried about the entire medical staff. It was amazing to me.

Simon Fisher, Executive Director at Save a Child’s Heart, added that “the complexities of bringing in children from countries defined as ‘enemy countries’ depend on the cooperation between the medical staff and the government, but in the end it all proves that human life is above everything.”

Referring to the project’s staff, he stressed: “They build bridges and break stereotypes.”

Source: Ynetnews.com

IDF field hospital on Golan Heights

Officials confirm ‘military field hospital’ built at IDF outpost in Golan Heights amid growing number of injured Syrians arriving at border

In light of the steady increase in the number of wounded Syrians Israel has been treating, the IDF has set up a “military field hospital” at army outpost 105 in the Golan Heights, AFP reported Thursday.

Israeli officials confirmed that the hospital was set up to treat injured Syrians near the border fence and avoid having to evacuate them to hospitals inside the country.

In the past month, several Syrians who were injured in the fighting between rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar Assad have been treated in northern Israel hospitals. According to AFP, eight of them were repatriated and three have remained in Israel for further treatment.

On Wednesday a number of injured Syrians made their way to the border with Israel. Two of the Syrians, who were critically wounded, were evacuated to Israeli hospitals with the authorization of IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz.

Continue reading via Ynetnews

Two years after a tsunami devastated the eastern seaboard of Japan, the people of Minamisanriku,  inaugurated a statue Tuesday honoring the assistance Israel provided the city following the tragic event.

Titled “Rebirth and Resurrection,” according to website Israel Today the statuewas produced by Israeli artist David Susanna, and was installed in front of the municipal offices and temporary Israeli hospitals established in the city. The new sculpture is meant to symbolize Israeli solidarity with the suffering of the Japanese people.

Israel was one of the first countries to offer its help to Japan in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. The IDF sent an aid delegation to Minamisanriku that erected a field clinic featuring a pediatrics ward, a surgical ward and a pharmacy among other offerings. The clinic’s first patient was the mayor of Minamisanriku, who was injured during the tsunami.

Source: Algemeiner.com

Pediatric orthopedic surgeons from Haifa and Afula were part of a team that performed surgeries on ailing patients in Latin America.

By Avigayil Kadesh

California-based Operation Rainbow has been sending medical teams to impoverished Latin American and Caribbean countries for more than 20 years. This past June (2012) was the first time two Israeli doctors joined one of the charitable organization’s missions, by invitation of one of the top US physicians in this specialty.

Dr. Mark Eidelman, director of the pediatric orthopedic department at Haifa’s Rambam Health Care Campus, and Emek Medical Center senior orthopedic surgeon Dr. Noam Bor, were hand-picked for a mission to the southern Ecuadoran city of Loja in June. Over the course of four 14-hour days, they treated 33 young patients from neighboring villages.

By comparison, surgeons at Rambam — northern Israel’s largest hospital — perform five to 10 pediatric orthopedic surgeries every week.

Aside from a Colombian surgical fellow who also helped translate, the two Israelis were the only members of the 22-person team who were not from the United States. They were chosen by team leader Dr. John Herzenberg, a noted pediatric orthopedist at Baltimore’s Sinai Hospital, under whose supervision each completed a fellowship in the past.

“It worked out very well. Our team was thrilled and the local doctors were thrilled,” says Operation Rainbow director Laura Escobosa. “This was the second time we’ve been to this particular hospital, and we like it because it’s an academic hospital where we can do a lot of teaching through lectures and practicals.”

Tons of medical equipment

Eidelman gave three lectures at one of two local university medical schools in the city of 165,000 people, and he did much more hands-on training while performing 13 surgeries.

“In Ecuador there are not many pediatric orthopedic surgeons, and in Loja there are none, so I taught local doctors,” he says.

Out of about 350 potential patients requesting treatment from the visiting physicians, doctors at the hospital chose 75 particularly serious cases. The 33 resulting surgeries were done on adults and children as young as five months old.

Seven of the operations he performed were to correct dislocated hips left untreated for years – a serious problem Eidelman has no opportunity to see in Israel, where medical care is more advanced.

Despite a grueling 27-hour trip each way, involving several stops and a four-hour bus ride, Eidelman says he was not hesitant to join the mission and would do it again. “For professional experience, I will go to any spot where they invite me,” he says. ”It was very good emotionally and professionally.”

The team of doctors, nurses and physical therapists also brought along two-and-a-half tons of medical equipment on behalf of Operation Rainbow, which Esobosa explains is a privately supported charity with no religious or political agenda.

Source: MFA

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