Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh gave the green light yesterday for bringing a 7-year-old Iraqi war victim to the facility for reconstructive surgery, and the news is making Thanksgiving Day even brighter for the child's American sponsors.

The boy, Abdul Hakim Ismael, was wounded last year in the city of Fallujah. His family said he was hit by fire from an American air strike, leaving the left side of his face severely disfigured -- blinded in one eye with damaged eyelid, socket, jaw and cheek, making it difficult for him to eat.

Three local surgeons -- Dr. Tonya Stefko, Dr. William Chung and Dr. Fred Deleyiannis -- and an oculist, Walter Tillman, offered over the summer to treat Hakim at no cost. Children's initially agreed to absorb half the hospital bill, which could run into several hundred thousand dollars. But that left Hakim's sponsors in a bind -- afraid to risk bringing him here unless the costs were covered, unable to determine the costs until they brought him here, and afraid that the final tally would wreck their efforts to assist other children.

But Children's Hospital had a dilemma of its own -- balancing the potential expense of this case against the cost of its ongoing mission to treat children in the 12-county area. The institution's Free Care Fund is reserved for local families and cannot be tapped for Hakim, so the hospital would have to absorb any uncovered expenses from its own finances.

"There are hundreds, if not thousands, of children in foreign countries whose cases are very compelling and tear at the heart strings every bit as much as this one," Mr. Walters said. "If Children's tried to provide free care for all for whom requests are made, it would soon exhaust its resources."

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran a story about the dilemma on Tuesday and yesterday the hospital gave the go-ahead to bring the child to Pittsburgh. The child and his father must be brought first to Jordan for a visa (there is no working U.S. Embassy in Iraq) and then to Pittsburgh.

The process could take a month.

"I'm elated. I couldn't think of anything to be more thankful for," said Dan Kovalik, a local lawyer and volunteer with the organization No More Victims. The group -- www.nomorevictims.org -- is seeking donated medical care in the United States for about a dozen Iraqi children wounded by the American military in a war with few distinctions between civilians and insurgents.

"In the Jewish faith, there's a saying that to save one person is to save the entire world, and now we can save this one person," Mr. Kovalik said. "When I'm sitting down to dinner, the first ones I'll thank are the people at Children's Hospital for making this happen."

Children's Vice-President Dean Walters said that bringing the child to Pittsburgh for the surgery he needs "was the hospital's intent from the beginning."

"Ordinarily, our policy would exclude Abdul Hakim from consideration for charity care, but we were able to make an exception in this case due to his special circumstance as a victim of bombing during the Iraq war, and the contribution to his care being provided by No More Victims."

Mr. Kovalik said that the financial arrangements have been left unspecified but that the important thing was getting the boy to Pittsburgh with a commitment that treatment would be provided.

No More Victims already has raised about $10,000 for travel and related expenses for Hakim and another child whose departure from Jordan to Florida is imminent. Two other children have received care in California and Texas.