Netivot Boy, Six, Dies; Four Sisters Hospitalized With Shortness of Breath

A six-year-old boy from Netivot passed away Monday morning in his sleep, and his four sisters were taken to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon with shortness of breath and vomiting.

The circumstances of the death and hospitalizations were being probed, with media outlets saying they could be linked to the fact that all the family’s children hadn’t been vaccinated, were recently infected with COVID-19 and had recovered.

Medics said that they arrived at the family home to find the boy unconscious and without vital signs. He was taken to the hospital in critical condition amid resuscitation attempts, and doctors eventually pronounced him dead.

The boy’s older sister, aged 10, has been hospitalized at Barzilai for several days after experiencing spasms. The remaining three sisters — aged seven, four and two — were all taken to the hospital on Monday with mild symptoms.

The boy reportedly had a medical condition that had seen him hospitalized several times in the past. Officials are checking whether the death was linked to the background illness, to a post-COVID syndrome known as PIMS, or to another cause.

Barzilai Hospital said that all options were being probed.