US move against Hamas funding hits dialysis

Lying in a hospital bed, 8-year-old Hanine Shehadeh looks with confused eyes at the dialysis machine that is connected to her body. The equipment could soon be taken away as a result of the recent US decision to shut down all Hamas-linked institutions.

“I want to live like the children of my age, what have I done to be deprived of my treatment? I ask (US President George W.) Bush and the American people what have I done so that they sentence me to death?” she asks.

Like 60 other Palestinians who suffer from kidney failure, Hanine has to undergo dialysis three times a week at the Hamshari Hospital’s dialysis department, or face certain death. The United States government closed down a US-based Arab association that was financed by an American citizen of Palestinian origin, Hussein Tabari. Tabari has been transferring $10,000 monthly to the dialysis section through the association since 1996.

The dialysis section at the hospital, which is part of the Palestinian Red Crescent, has stopped receiving its patients, aged between 7 and 83 years, starting Monday due to the lack of funds.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/26_08_03/art5.asp

how many bomb making classes won't get their field trips to an Isreali shopping mall...or maybe not...