Ahmed was mistakenly killed by an Israeli soldier.It was November 3, 2005, in Jenin, a Palestinian city in northern West Bank, during the celebration marking the end of Ramadan. Little Ahmed was playing with a toy machinegun. An Israeli soldier, from a distance of 130 metres, mistook the plastic toy for a real gun. A shot to the head. Ambulance. Then the death. Rather than allowing himself to be blinded by rage and (overwhelmed) by sorrow, the father, Ismail Khatib, decided to donate his son’s organs to five Israeli children and a 58-year-old woman.
“Saving lives is more important that any religion,” he had declared at the time. “It’s as if my son has entered into the hearts of every Israeli.”
His uncle had said: “It doesn’t matter who Ahmed’s organs go to. A child is a child.”
Receiving Ahmed’s heart was a 12-year-old Israeli Jew, Samah who had been waiting for a transplant for five years.