Lives of slain Palestinian toddler's family in "mortal condition"

Doctors with the Sheba Medical Center outside Tel Aviv said Saturday afternoon that family members of the infant who died on Friday in a Jewish arson attack in the West Bank are in "mortal condition."

"We are fighting for their lives but the fight isn't going to be easy," Prof. Yossi Haik, head of Israel's National Burn Intensive Care Unit, told journalists at Sheba.

The Dawabshe family was evacuated to Israeli hospitals after their home in the village of Duma was burnt down in a suspected torching attack by Israeli ultra-nationalists.

Haik said that the mother Riham, 26, sustained the most severe wounds, after she ran back into the burning home in attempt to save her baby, Ali Saad, who didn't survive the attack.

About 90 percent of Rhiam's body is covered with third-degree burns, the second most severe kind of burn, Haik said, adding that also her lungs were harmed by the smoke.

Dr. Marina Rubinstein, a doctor at Sheba's Children Intensive Care Unit, said they managed to "stabilize" the condition of four-year-old Ahmed, Ali's brother. However, she added that he is still in a "very grave condition."

"He is on respirator and medication and there is still a danger to his life," she said.

Haik said that if Ahmad will survive his wounds, he is expected at least six more months in hospital before he could be discharged.

The father, Saad, is hospitalized in the Soroka Medical Center in the southern city of Be'er Sheva, also in a mortal condition, said Haik.

Earlier Saturday, Palestinian Health Minister Dr. Jawad Awad visited the Soroka Medical Center in Beer Sheva, Israel's Ynet news site reported. Nasser, the brother of Saad Dawabshe, also attended the visit and called on the international community to "protect the Palestinians from settler terrorism."

Youths with Israeli Arab non-profit organization Amanina put up a mourner tent at Sheba and lifted signs reading: "Was burned alive and a melody has gone from the world" and "Don't burn children." Amanina is an organization helps Palestinian children from the West Bank to attend medical care in Israeli hospitals.

A Israeli military spokesperson said that a preliminary investigation suggests that settlers entered the Duma village in the early hours of Friday morning, breaking windows of two homes and throwing in firebombs. They sprayed graffiti reading "revenge" and "long live the Messiah" in Hebrew on the homes.

Dawabshe's home was burned to the ground and another home was partially burned.

The attack, denounced by the European Union and the UN Security Council, sparked angry protests throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Two Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers during clashes that ensued near Ramallah and near the Gaza border.

On Friday, Israel's President Reuven Rivlin, admitted that Israel's law enforcement on Jewish attackers of Palestinians was "lax."

"Until now it seems we have been lax in our treatment of the phenomena of Jewish terrorism," Rivlin said in a message in Arabic to Palestinian populations in the West Bank and Israel. "Perhaps we did not internalize that we are faced with a determined and dangerous, ideological group," he noted. Endit