The Saudi medical team, poised to perform a surgical operation to separate the Palestinian conjoined twins who were promptly brought from Gaza yesterday and rushed to Riyadh-based King Abdulaziz Medical City for the National Guard, announced today that it is not possible to perform the operation, citing inherited defects of the patients. In a press release, Dr. Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al-Rabea'a, Minister of Health and Head of the Medical Team, said intensive tests, being conducted since the arrival of the patients, showed that the life of the two female Siamese twins would be endangered by the operation. He explained to the press the serious inherited defects at the heart, liver and digestive system of the Siamese twins, making the operation impossible. He quoted the parents of the patients as thanking the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the generous offer to have the operation performed at one of its renowned hospitals, a move hindered by the result of intensive medical tests.
