Low funds deprive Palestinian children of marrow transplants

But Mustafa will not be able to undergo that transplant soon. It is not performed at hospitals in the territories, and no backer has been found to pay for the $40,000 transplant in Israel or overseas.

Mustafa is in relatively good shape, but 27 other Palestinian children are not as fortunate, according to the records of Akhram Samhan, who is in charge of outpatient care at the Palestinian Health Ministry. They are in urgent need of a bone marrow transplant, and there is no one to pay the hospitals in Israel.

Until a few weeks ago, the Palestinian Health Ministry covered the costs of bone marrow, liver and kidney transplants for children. According to Health Minister Basim Naim of Hamas, the ministry's coffers are empty because of the economic siege on the Palestinian Authority. But the truth is more complicated than Naim and human rights organizations like to admit.

Since Hamas came to power, the PA has not transferred money directly to Israeli hospitals. So the Israeli government takes the funds from the taxes that it collects on the PA's behalf and transfers them to those hospitals.

But, according to a senior Palestinian official, the Hamas government has other priorities right now: It needs the tax revenues to pay Israel for electricity, gas and fuel. "Patients are less important at the moment," he said.

Shiyukhi is critical of both the Israeli and the Palestinian governments. "Your decision to besiege Hamas hurts the simple folk first of all. But our government must also understand that they may want jihad and 'resistance,' but treating sick people - that's the real jihad. Our government must take responsibility and take care of its citizens."

The Palestinian Ministry of Health maintains that Israel should pay for the patient's treatment, as it is "the occupier in the territory". On the Ministry's decision not to issue commitments of payment, it was said that this was a decision of principle since Israel cannot determine that the PAlestinians can only be treated in Israel (the money from the withheld taxes can only be transferred to hospitals in Israel)