Top Palestinian official donates to Israeli hospital that saved his life

A Palestinian Authority official has donated tens of thousands of shekels to the Rambam Medical Center after receiving life-saving treatment at the Haifa-area hospital, the hospital said.

According to a statement from Rambam, the unnamed PA official made a financial contribution to help hospitalized kids in an effort “to build peace through medicine.”

The official, who chose to remain anonymous, was hospitalized at Rambam earlier this year for cancer treatment and said he was motivated to donate after witnessing the coexistence in practice.

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“When I arrived at Rambam, I saw a medical team that treats its patients with dedication, but I also saw the suffering of sick children,” he said according to the statement. “Palestinian children, Israelis, Syrians, and children from other countries who are being treated at Rambam for serious illnesses and are in need of all the help they can get.”

His donation will go toward building a kids’ playroom in the Institute of Radiology of the Joseph Fishman Oncology Center.

People entering the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Jan. 30, 2011. (Moshe Shai/Flash90)

“I decided to make a donation to help save human lives apart from any political considerations,” he said.

“Both Israeli and Palestinian societies suffer from violence and I am striving for a situation where we all can contribute to peace and health: to treat children, save lives, share knowledge, and train Palestinian doctors at Rambam, in order to improve the state of the health systems and the capacity to treat people in the PA areas, and to encourage others to donate and contribute to the betterment of health within our two nations.”

“Medicine is a bridge between peoples and my hope is that with the help of this small contribution and others like it in the future, we will all see a better tomorrow,” the official added.

Rambam is the largest medical center in the country’s north and one of Israel’s most renowned hospitals.

Along with certain other Israeli hospitals, it’s considered a model of co-existence between Jews and Arabs, its corridors are filled with women wearing traditional Muslim dresses and headscarves walking alongside ultra-Orthodox Jews and patients with Jewish skullcaps.

As of 2015, half of the beds in Rambam’s pediatric cancer wing were filled by children from Gaza and the West Bank.