A 16-year-old girl from Cyprus has found herself at the center of an unprecedented transplant chain, which linked a Jewish volunteer donor, a Cypriot family and two couples of Arab citizens of Israel.
The process lasted more than 12 hours and resulted in the rescue of four people, Muslims, Christians and Jews.
The newspaper Israel Hayom today publishes a full report with a photo of both the donor and the patients, together. Next to the 16-year-old Cypriot F.V. is her father. He notes that the intervention had been postponed twice, one on the day he was due to travel to Israel, due to the start of the war with Iran.
The third attempt was successfully completed, in collaboration with Beilinson Hospital and the National Transplant Center of Israel. The medical marathon started at 5 am and ended at 7 pm, with four pairs of donors and recipients undergoing surgery in succession. All recipients have already been discharged.
The chain was started by 52-year-old Asaf Mor from Hod Hasharon, a father of four, who altruistically offered one of his kidneys to the 16-year-old. "I thought I would save a man. I didn't know that my kidney would give life to four people," he said.
The mother of the 16-year-old was not compatible to donate directly to her daughter. However, she was found compatible with 27-year-old Hannah Shaaban, an Arab from Majd al-Krum, who had been waiting years for a second transplant, as the previous graft had been damaged after she contracted coronavirus.
Hannah's husband then donated a kidney to Nail, also an Arab citizen of Israel, and Nail's wife offered her own kidney to Orit, completing the chain of four transplants.
The director of Beilinson's Transplant Department, Dr. Eviatar Nesser, described the cooperation between Cyprus and Israel as "one of the most impressive successes of medical diplomacy".
