Baby unites all sides in Mid East
turmoil
THE baby girl in Jerusalem's Hadassah
hospital is a rare example of co-operation among members of the three religions
- Islam, Christianity and Judaism - which are so often in conflict in the
Holy Land.
THE baby girl in Jerusalem's Hadassah
hospital is a rare example of co-operation among members of the three religions
- Islam, Christianity and Judaism - which are so often in conflict in the
Holy Land.
Abandoned at birth on a rubbish tip
in a war zone, she was rescued by Palestinian doctors, nursed by Roman
Catholic nuns and is now recovering from a heart operation carried out
by Israeli surgeons.
The nuns named the Palestinian baby
Salaam - "peace" in Arabic. Her case is all the more extraordinary as Israeli
and Palestinian children die routinely in the conflict, mourned by their
families but ignored by the other side.
Palestinian suicide bombers have targeted
Israeli children and young people, justifying the attacks as directed against
"future soldiers in the army of occupation". Israeli soldiers have shot
dead Palestinian children guilty of throwing stones.
Salaam was abandoned probably because
she was born out of wedlock. This is a source of great shame in Palestinian
society and can lead to the mother being killed by her brothers to restore
the family honour.
"She was found among the rubbish on
the road north of Ramallah," said Sister Sophie, of the Holy Family Creche
in Bethlehem, which has cared for abandoned children for more than 100
years. "We know nothing of her parents. There is no birth certificate."
She was taken to a refuge run by Palestinian
social services in Tulkarm. But she lost weight and it was clear to doctors
that her medical problems - including three serious heart defects - were
beyond the local hospitals.
"They rang me and asked me to collect
a dying baby," said Sister Sophie. "We are the only hope in the Palestinian
territories for abandoned children who need serious medical help."
The nuns of the Sisters of Charity
of St Vincent de Paul raised £8,000 from Catholic charities in Europe
to pay for open heart surgery, which was carried out on Jan 24, at Hadassah,
one of Israel's leading hospitals.
The intensive care unit seems a world
away from the bitterness and hatred all around, one of the few places where
Arab and Jew are equal.
Sister Sophie said of her decision
to send the baby to Israel: "In Israel, politics is one thing and medicine
is another."
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