The Health Ministry panel charged with approving sex-reassignment surgery has been slammed as non-transparent.

In October 1985, a well-known plastic surgeon from the Italian Hospital in Haifa operated on a 21-year-old woman named Daniella. She had been born a boy, but lived life as a female in every sense and wanted to adjust her physiological gender to her internal gender identity. The operation went badly and Daniella was left without genitalia of either gender.