Mariya of the sorrows
A happy ending? Not an ending, and not happy. Mariya Aman was transferred this week to the Alyn children’s hospital in Jerusalem, after Israel had been on the point of returning her to Gaza, paralyzed and on a respirator. The little girl, aged 3 and a half, who lost her mother, her brother and her grandmother about a month ago, will have to undergo a rehabilitation process of several months. At the end of it, perhaps she will at least be able to breathe on her own, to speak, and maybe even to get out of bed. About half a year, maybe more, maybe less, according to the doctor’s estimate – during which time she will be hospitalized in this excellent hospital.
Although her father will be at her side, he will have no home and no
place to stay; he will be imprisoned in the hospital, while at his home in Gaza, his young son Muaman, 2, who lost his mother and has been separated from his father, is waiting for him.
The two children, Mariya and Muaman, are survivors of the “targeted assassination” carried out by the Israel Air Force, which was planning to kill Mohammed Dahduh of the Islamic Jihad, and cut down almost an entire family. Had it not been for the intervention of Physicians for Human Rights, and the belated response of Defense Minister Amir Peretz, who acted to provide funding for rehabilitation treatment for the child, she would have been sent to Gaza, where there is not a single rehabilitation hospital, to die a slow death. This week, a similar solution was being sought for her uncle, Nahed, father of two infants, who is also on a respirator and paralyzed from the attack.
haaretz.com
Arms transferred to Abbas with Israeli blessing: official
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Arms were transferred with Israel’s blessing to the forces loyal to Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas, parliamentary foreign affairs committee chairman Tzahi Hanegbi said.
“By permitting the transfer of these arms last night, we applied a decision taken three weeks ago by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on a recommendation by the security authorities,” Hanegbi told Israeli public radio.
According to the Yediot Aharonot daily, three trucks carrying 950 American M-16 automatic rifles crossed into the West Bank and Gaza from Jordan under Israeli military escort overnight Wednesday and early Thursday.
Some 400 were delivered to Abbas’s presidential guard at Ramallah in the West Bank and the remainder went to the same force in Gaza, it said.
The weapons are to enable Abbas “to cope with Hamas”, the hardline Islamist group that leads the Palestinian government, Olmert said at the British parliament in London on Tuesday.