Israeli Hospital Operates On Palestinian With Rare ‘Tree Man’ Disease

Image by Hadassah Medical Center

By Daniel J. Solomon August 30, 2017

A Palestinian man with a rare disorder that led his hand to blow up and develop cysts making it resemble a tree has finally gotten the growths removed, thanks to an ambitious operation performed at Israel’s Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem.

“This is a very rare case that has no documentation whatsoever in the medical annals,” Dr. Michael Chernofsky, the surgeon who worked on so-called “tree man” Mohammed Taluli told the Times of Israel. His condition resulted from rare complications from the human papilloma virus, or HPV.

Taluli, who had sought care on the West Bank and Israel, thanked his doctors for their effective and compassionate treatment. “After years in which I sat at home embarrassed and could not work because of the limitation and feared cancer, the experts here at Hadassah were the only ones who gave me hope,” he said.

Taluli is now recovering at the hospital, where he is receiving medications and vaccines. He is originally from the Gaza Strip.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at solomon@forward.com or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.

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