Grateful Patients Receive Corneas from Israeli Murder Victims Shot by Terrorists
JERUSALEM, Israel – Israelis everywhere felt the pain of two more lives lost to violence when brothers Hillel and Yagel Yaniv (ages 21 and 19) were murdered by a terrorist at a stoplight in the Arab town of Huwara in Samaria last February.
Nothing can compensate for the lives lost, but the Yaniv family took solace last Sunday when they saw the eyes of their young men in three patients who received their corneas through organ donation and transplant.
The Yaniv's reunited with the three patients – Ziona Zalzberg, Ron Carmeli and Itzhak Buskila – at Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikvah Sunday, where doctors performed the surgeries. The hospital conducts 70 percent of Israel's transplant surgeries.
Zalzberg, a 68-year-old woman who now can see well enough to travel again and not be a burden on her family, told Esti and Shalom Yaniv, “I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the light that you have lit in my eyes. I thank you for your noble soul and decision to do something so brave that will forever impact my life," and added. “I will never forget the gift you gave me.”
Buskila, a 42-year-old warehouse logistics worker for a food distributor and father of 3, had eyesight so poor that he was largely incapacitated in his work. That changed with his new cornea.
Through his transplant, Carmeli, 66, received the ability to see his granddaughter and play with her the way normal grandparents do.
Shalom Yaniv, the father of Hillel and Yigal, expressed the family's heart. “We wish for the recipients that they should see the world from the perspective of good and happiness the way sweet Yagel and Hillel saw it,” he said. “Their big beautiful eyes will continue to light up our world through these four recipients. It gives us hope that even after their passing, they continue to help others.”
The patients and the family were not the only ones touched by the reunion. The hospital's Chief of Ophthalmology, Dr. Irit Bahar, who performed the transplants with Prof. Eytan Livny, and helped the patients recover, recalled, “It was incredibly emotional being in the room as the Yaniv family met Ziona, Ron and Itzhak who each expressed their gratitude to the family and to Yagel and Hillel who they never met but who they feel indebted to for giving them the gift of sight.”
Dr. Bahar stressed the importance of the emotional healing that takes place in both the donor family and the patients during such a stressful transition. She emphasized, "It was important for Ziona, Ron and Itzhak to meet with the Yaniv family and share their gratitude in person."
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