It is rare in this region for tragedy not to beget more tragedy, but the grieving family of 12-year Palestinian boy Ahmed al-Khatib - who was shot dead last Saturday by Israeli soldiers in Jenin - has demonstrated, through a singular grand gesture, that sometimes, even here, good can come of bad.

The boy, who was shot in the head and chest by Israeli soldiers who claimed to have mistaken the child for a militant because was playing with a toy gun, succumbed to his wounds in an Israeli hospital on Saturday (he was initially taken to a Palestinian hospital in Ramallah but transferred to an Israeli hospital in Haifa when the full extent of his condition became evident). Upon his death, the boy’s family magnanimously decided to donate his organs for transplants in Israel - “for the sake of peace” - thereby saving the lives of six Israelis (reportedly, 5 children and one adult) in desperate need of transplants. According to news reports, the boy’s liver was divided between a 6 month old baby and a 56 year old woman; his kidneys were given to a 5 year old boy; and his lungs were given to a 5 year old boy and a 4 year old girl. Lastly, a 12 year old Druze girl, Samah Gadban, who been waiting for five years to receive a suitable heart, underwent operation on Sunday to receive Ahmad’s heart.

While some Palestinians have questioned the usefulness of the gesture, given the continued raids by Israeli forces into Jenin and other Palestinian towns and the continued deaths of innocent civilians and children, the boy’s family remains rightly convinced of the symbolic value of their generosity. The boy’s grieving mother, Abla Khatib, said to reporters yesterday after the funeral that "Part of our son is still alive…We gave life to someone else. We proved that we want peace." And the boy’s father, Ismail, said “When I donated my son’s organs I did not say (they should be) for a Jewish child, an Arab child, whether Muslim or Christian… we want to send a message of peace to Israeli society, to the defense ministry and the Israeli parliament…they (Israeli forces) killed my son who was healthy and we want to give his organs to those who need them.”

As heart-rending pictures circulated this week in the Arab and Israeli press of visits to the boy’s family by delegations of grieving Israelis whose own children have died in suicide bombing attacks, the human element of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, so often buried under rhetoric, propaganda and statistics, has become evident to even the most cynical of observers. If anything, Ahmad al-Khatib's family has proven that it takes only one grand gesture to distill the real tragedy of this conflict to its essentials: innocent children die, and their parents are left to grieve. As the boy’s father said, as he stood by his young son’s freshly dug grave, "Israel sees the Jenin refugee camp as a factory for terrorists. This proves to Israel that there are people here who understand the meaning of humanity. I am proud that a part of my son has given life to someone in Israel… The occupation is barbaric. Maybe a child who received an organ from my son will grow up to be a leader and put an end to this aggression."

Maybe. As the incursions by the Israeli army into Jenin, Nablus, and other Palestinian towns continue; as innocent children continue to die (as did a 15 year old Palestinian boy in Nablus earlier this week), and as militants continue to plot their bloody revenge scenarios, there is still, nevertheless, always that hope.