By Akiva Eldar, Ha’aretz, 8 Aug 2007
Mariya Aman, a Palestinian girl who is almost 6 years old, is an intifada survivor. Until the age of four years and nine months she had a normal childhood in Gaza. Her father, Hamdi, worked in construction in Israel for years. On May 20, 2006, Maria and her family took a drive in their car to visit her sick aunt. At the exact same time, the Israel Defense Forces tried to assassinate Islamic Jihad’s Mohammed Dahdouh. An Israel Air Force plane circling above Gaza fired a missile at his car, which was traveling through Gaza City.
But the missile hit the Amans’ car, depriving Mariya of her mother, her 6-year-old brother, her grandmother and her uncle. A second brother, Muaman, 4, sustained moderate injuries. Mariya was critically wounded in her spine. She was left completely paralyzed, and her Israeli doctors determined that she would never be able to talk or even breathe on her own, much less walk, run or jump. Mariya is on a respirator at Alyn Children’s Hospital in Jerusalem.
Israelis and journalists from Israel and abroad, who were touched by the family’s story, had managed to persuade the authorities to keep her at the hospital up to now, and even reserved a small room there for her father and her injured brother (who has recovered). Four months ago the Civil Administration’s Health Coordinator, Dalia Bassa, told Hamdi Aman that within a few days he would have to remove his daughter from the only hospital in the Middle East that specializes in artificial respiration for children. The media’s intervention won Mariya a reprieve, but only temporarily. Last Wednesday the Defense Ministry informed the family that the three of them would be moved to a rehabilitative hospital for adults in Ramallah.
The letter from the Defense Ministry does not address Mariya’s need to be near an Israeli hospital or her future residential and educational opportunities.
There is no mention of the special equipment she will need once she matures. A High Court of Justice petition filed on behalf of Mariya and her father on the following day by attorneys Adi Lustigman and Tamir Blank says the move could be tantamount to a death sentence for the child, who needs to be in a rehabilitation center that is near a hospital with an intensive care unit and which specializes in respiratory and spinal problems.
The petition asked the High Court to prevent the three intifada survivors from being exiled to Ramallah. Mariya requested the court’s permission to allow her to attend first grade at the Bilingual School in Jerusalem, which has opened its doors to her.
Last Thursday a stay was issued, ordering the authorities not to force the three members of the Aman family to leave Israel until the three-justice High Court panel hears their case. This means that the state must continue to fund the treatment and the living expenses of what remains of the Aman family.
Fortunately for them, last year the High Court repealed the 2002 law absolving the state of the need to pay compensation to Palestinians for damages due to “non-combat” operations in the second intifada and ruled the broad absence of state responsibility unconstitutional.
Fortunately for them, Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann has not yet realized his initiative from last June to abrogate the High Court ruling. Friedmann argues that as long as Israel is involved in a conflict with the Palestinian people, it does not need to compensate Palestinian intifada survivors.