An eight-day-old Palestinian baby was transfered from the Gaza Strip to an Israeli hospital near Tel Aviv on Sunday to receive life-saving heart surgery.
Doctors at Sheba Medical Center said the child has a severe congenial heart defect and would have died within days had he not been operated on. His prognosis is now said to be excellent.
Israeli medical crews continue to bring Palestinian patients from Gaza to Sheba Medical Center to receive critical treatment they simply cannot get in the Palestinian-controlled territories. This despite the fact that Gaza-based terrorists are raining down rockets on southern Israel.
Ambulance personnel who spoke to Ynet said they are putting their lives in great danger to transfer Palestinian patients from Gaza on a daily basis. Last week, as Hamas mortar shells fell all around them, Israeli medics treated a Palestinian patient on the spot at Gaza's Erez Crossing.
A doctor from Sheba Medical Center said that on average, three of the transfered patients every week are children or babies with heart defects. There is no heart surgeon in the Gaza Strip.
The cost of the surgeries is largely covered by donations Sheba Medical Center raises for the purpose of helping ailing Palestinians.