In the afternoon of Monday, October 12, a 13-year-old Jewish boy was riding his bike in Pisgat Ze’ev, an Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem, when two Palestinian boys, cousins aged 13 and 15, stabbed him. The 13-year-old assailant, Ahmed Manasra, was run over by a car as he tried to escape; his cousin was shot dead by Israeli police after stabbing a 25-year-old Jewish bystander. Both injured parties—the 13-year-old Jewish boy and his 13-year-old assailant—were taken to Hadassah Medical Center at Jerusalem’s Mt. Scopus Hospital and in Ein Kerem, respectively—to be treated for their injuries.
On Monday, The Washington Post published a follow-up story about the doctors who treated both 13-year-old boys, who are currently in recovery. In a twist, it turns out that the doctors who treated the Israeli victim are a duo named “Bert and Ernie” or “Fried and Eid.” His anesthesiologist was Palestinian, too:
Ahmed Eid, 65, is a Muslim from the Galilee village of Dabburiya. Elchanan Fried, 41, is a Jew from Petah Tikva in central Israel. They both live in West Jerusalem.
Eid wears green scrubs and a scrub cap. Fried wears green scrubs and a knitted kippa. Eid is the head of surgery at Hadassah University Hospital in Mount Scopus. Fried is the head of the Intensive Care Unit.
“No blood pressure,” Eid told The Washington Post about the boy’s condition when he was first admitted.
“More dead than alive,” Fried added.
A few miles away, the teenage Palestinian stabber was being treated by Miklosh Bala, a Soviet-born Jew who is the director at the Ein Kerem hospital’s trauma unit. “All we wanted was to see that he was alive,” said Bala. “That is my job.”
Read the full story here.
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Jonathan Zalman is a writer and teacher based in Brooklyn.
