Ahmed's gift of life

Ahmed Khatib's death was tragically unexceptional: the 12-year-old Palestinian was shot by Israeli soldiers while holding a toy gun. But what happened next was not. The boy's parents donated his organs to six Israelis. They tell Chris McGreal why their decision was a gesture of both peace and resistance

Chris McGreal Friday November 11, 2005

Guardian

For once, the circumstances of a young boy's death from an Israeli bullet are not in dispute. The army concedes that one of its soldiers shot 12-year-old Ahmed Khatib in the head during a raid on Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank last week. Other Palestinian children playing with Ahmed have backed up the military's statement that he was waving a toy gun that looked, to the soldier who shot him, remarkably like the real thing.

The army apologised with unusual speed. The armed factions entrenched in the Jenin camp made no calls for revenge.

But it was the reaction of Ahmed's parents that caught everyone off guard. As life slipped away from their son in an Israeli hospital at the weekend, Ismail and Abla Khatib decided that some good could come of his death. The Palestinian family donated Ahmed's organs for transplant. The boy was in an Israeli hospital and his parents understood that their son's body parts were most likely to save people routinely spoken of as "the enemy" in Jenin. Within hours, Ahmed's heart, kidneys, liver and lungs were transplanted into six Israelis, four of them Jewish.

The move was hailed by stunned Israeli leaders as a "remarkable gesture for peace", particularly given the circumstances of Ahmed's death, and a bridge between warring communities. Ariel Sharon's closest cabinet ally, deputy prime minister Ehud Olmert, telephoned Ismail to praise his "noble gesture". The speaker of the Israeli parliament praised the Palestinian family for its "remarkable humanity".

The Khatibs say that peace and a desire to alleviate the suffering of others was uppermost in their minds. But, looking exhausted and still stunned by the twin demands of Ahmed's death and the Israeli embrace, they also speak of their decision as an act of resistance and anger. And they have found an ally in the armed men who more usually fight back by blowing up Israelis.

"To give away his organs was a different kind of resistance," says Abla. "Violence against violence is worthless. Maybe this will reach the ears of the whole world so they can distinguish between just and unjust. Maybe the Israelis will think of us differently. Maybe just one Israeli will decide not to shoot."

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