In a historic event, an Israeli woman will donate a kidney to a patient from the United Arab Emirates, almost a year after the Trump administration negotiated a normalization agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
Shani Markowitz Manshar, 39, will undergo surgery at Sheba Medical Center on Wednesday to donate one of your kidneys to a patient in Abu Dhabi as part of an organ donation program between the two countries.
In statements to the Emirati media Khaleej Times, Sheba Medical Center global media spokesperson Steve Walz stated, “There will be more organ transplants and medical tourism like this in the coming months.”
“Now we can do things that were not possible before thanks to the Abrahamic Accords, and helping the citizens of the Gulf is a top priority for us,” he added.
The procedure is part of a three-way kidney exchange, according to the report. Manshar’s mother will also receive a kidney transplant at the same hospital this week, while a patient at Haifa’s Rambam Health Care Campus will receive a transplant from a UAE donor.
Professor Eitan Moore of the Sheba Transplant Center told Ynet that the organ donation program was “very significant.”
“Now I can speak with my colleagues in Abu Dhabi freely, thanks to the Abraham Accords,” he said. “This is a step that can promote peace. When I spoke to the doctors in Abu Dhabi, they told me that they were also happy to be partners for the first time.
Earlier this month, The UAE formally opened its embassy in Israel, a week after Jerusalem opened its own mission in Abu Dhabi.
The Abraham Accords, led by Trump, also included normalization agreements with other Muslim and Arab countries, such as Sudan, Morocco and Bahrain.
The UAE’s decision to establish ties with Israel provoked the outrage of Palestinian leaders, who called it a “stab in the back”.
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