Bahraini Ambassador to Israel Khaled Yousif al-Jalahma visited an Israeli cardiac clinic last week, where children from all over the world, including the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Authority, are treated.

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Founded by Israeli-American Dr. Ami Cohen, Save a Child's Heart is an international non-profit organization with the mission of bringing life-saving cardiac care to children in need worldwide. Based at the new Sylvan Adams Children's Hospital in Holon, it provides where life-saving heart treatments to hundreds of children annually.

After his visit, Jalahma said, "We will examine humanitarian cooperation between Israel and Bahrain for the first time" since the signing of the Abraham Accords.

The ambassador also met with the Chairman of Save a Child's Heart, Yoram Cohen, and its Executive Director Simon Fisher, to discuss future humanitarian cooperation between the two countries.

At the end of the meeting, Jalahma toured the hospital, where he met the medical team, including three Palestinian doctors from Gaza and two other doctors from Zambia and Ethiopia who are taking part in the Save a Child's Heart training program.

The visit ended with a touching meeting of the ambassador with dozens of children from Iraq, Myanmar, Zambia, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Nigeria, who had undergone life-saving medical care in Israel.

"I hear a lot about the humanitarian activity of Save a Child's Heart, and I am very happy to be here today to see the work firsthand," Jalahma said. "I hope that this is the beginning of a very fruitful relationship between Bahrain and Israel in the medical field. I have heard of the work you do across the world. Working with you has become possible because of the Abraham Accords and we look to build on this. These kinds of programs are what will make our world a better place."

Fisher concurred: "We are excited to meet the ambassador and introduce him to Israeli humanitarian activities for children with heart disease from around the world out of a genuine desire and faith to work for a better world.
"The Abraham Accords have opened up many opportunities for expanding the organization's activities in Arab countries and Africa, and we hope that fruitful collaborations will be created as a result in order to save the lives of more children," he said.

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An Israeli humanitarian organization will bring a group of children from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Israel for life-saving heart surgeries.

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Haim Taib, president of Save a Child's Heart Africa, made the announcement at a state dinner hosting DR Congo President Felix Tshisekedi and President Isaac Herzog in late October, The Times of Israel reported.

Following his life-saving treatment in #Israel, Ameyeron is ready to return to #Ethiopia this week with a healthy heart (and a cool scar to match )@ethembis @IsraelinET pic.twitter.com/rl3JE1vvi8

— Save a Child's Heart (@SaveChildsHeart) October 11, 2021

According to Taib, five children between the ages of one and 12 will be flown to Israel in three weeks and treated at the Wolfson Medical Center south of Tel Aviv.

"I told [Tshisekedi] I was donating the funds for five children to come to Israel at our expense," Taib said. "He became very emotional," The Times of Israel reported.

As the founder of the Mitrelli Group – an international group of subsidiaries that collaborates with governments for nation development – Taib specializes in improving living conditions and saving lives in Africa.

According to The Times of Israel, Tshisekedi responded to the gesture by committing to a special order that would enable SACH to bring the children to Israel quickly.

Israel has recently strengthened ties with DR Congo, even as Tshisekedi's critics accuse the leader of being the ideological successor of his predecessor Joseph Kabila. Kabila was accused of stoking ethnic tensions and stealing money before stepping down in 2018 amid major protests.

Herzog added that the Israeli government "supports unconditionally" Tshisekedi's leadership, according to The Times of Israel report.

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The SACH organization will arrange the children's travel from DR Congo to Israel and their course of treatment once medical documents are acquired.

i24NEWS contributed to this report.

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In the BBC series "My Grandparents' War," now airing on PBS in the US, World War II history comes to life as modern-day celebrities, including Helena Bonham Carter, learn about their grandparents' experiences in that turbulent era.

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American author Elizabeth Vrato has a similar story.

Vrato, a Chicago attorney and author of The Counselors: Conversations with 18 Courageous Women Who Have Changed the World (foreword by Bill Clinton), discovered just last year that her own grandfather, Kadri Cakrani, acted with incredible humanitarianism and bravery during the Holocaust in Europe. Commandant Cakrani sheltered approximately 600 Jews in Albania while serving as the military officer in charge of its Berat region while it was under Nazi occupation.

Cakrani rallied his soldiers and the local citizenry to shelter Jews from the Nazis, even though the penalty for doing so was death. Fluent in German after having gone to school in Vienna, Cakrani lied capably under repeated threats and questioning by Nazi officials, saying he had no information about any Jews in the Berat region. He never turned over a single name. Whenever he got word of Nazi sweeps to find Jews, the sheltered refugees – from Poland, Germany, France and Macedonia – were moved from one part of the city to another, keeping them safe. He also took the enormous personal risk of hiding Jews in his own home.

At the end of World War II, Cakrani himself became a refugee. He put his life on the line once again in opposing Communist dictator Enver Hoxha in his takeover of Albania. Chased by Hoxha's death warrant and aided by British officers Colonel David Smiley and Lieutenant Colonel Billy McLean, Cakrani narrowly escaped to a displaced persons camp in Italy. Cakrani was granted political asylum by President Harry Truman and worked with US Intelligence to try to restore democracy to Albania. Furious at Cakrani's escape and protection by the West, Hoxha seized all of Cakrani's property and assets.

Cakrani never spoke publicly against Hoxha or about his work to shelter Jews during the Holocaust, in order not to endanger the lives of his fellow soldiers and friends who remained behind the Iron Curtain under Hoxha's regime. His story remained untold for decades.

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Vrato says that during the four years she spent "researching, traveling, and interviewing leaders who changed the world, such as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Attorney General Janet Reno," she was unaware of this "dramatic, heroic story within my own family."

Vrato first learned of her grandfather's wartime actions from a Facebook post about the new Solomon Museum of Jewish History in Berat in early 2020. Shortly after seeing the post, she visited the museum, just before borders closed due to the COVID pandemic.

Some of the testimony, correspondence, and photos about her grandfather's selfless acts she encountered there, collected by Professor Simon Vrusho, now are viewable on KadriCakrani.org. The site's content is available in English, Hebrew, and Albanian.

"I'm so proud this story can finally be told," Vrato says. "My grandfather shows us the best aspects of humanity and of Europe."

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