Girl born in Gaza dies after her mother was killed: NPR

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — There was a glimmer of hope in Rafah last weekend, when doctors were able to rescue a baby girl from her mother’s womb after Saturday night’s airstrikes killed her entire family.

Her mother was dead when she was brought to the field hospital, but doctors were able to quickly operate on her outside of her main structure, performing an emergency cesarean section to deliver her baby.

The mother, Sabreen al-Sakani, was 30 weeks pregnant. The baby, two months premature, was placed in an oxygen mask that wrapped around her small face and was transported to a larger hospital that has incubators.

The only survivor of her family.

The baby’s mother, his father Shukri Jouda and his little sister Malak (angel in Arabic) were also killed in the Israeli airstrike that hit the family’s home in Rafah, according to information from the hospital morgue and extended family.

The day after the strike that killed the family, the baby his uncle Rami al-Sheikh told the cameras. he was ready to take care of her. “I will hug her and take care of her,” he said in a Sky News report.

But Dr. Mohammed Salama, director of the neonatal department at the Emirati hospital in Rafah, where the baby was being cared for, told NPR that she died Thursday, despite her team’s best efforts to save her.

The baby’s uncle told the Associated Press that the girl, who was named Sabreen after her mother, was buried on Thursday next to her father. She was five days old.

Increasing airstrikes on Rafah kill mainly women and children

The newborn’s death comes during an increase in Israeli airstrikes in Rafah, where an estimated 1.4 million Palestinians have sought refuge in the nearly seven-month war that broke out on October 1. 7 with a deadly Hamas attack against Israel that killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities. Since then, more than 34,000 Palestinians have died in the war, according to Gaza health officials.

Israel’s military says it is planning an attack on Rafah to go after Hamas, but has not said when it might happen. The Biden administration says it is concerned about the toll an offensive on Rafah could have on civilians, even if they are ordered to evacuate.

Israel has said Hamas battalions operate in Rafah. The Israeli military has not responded to NPR’s questions about why the Jouda family home, among others, has been attacked there.

Morgue records and survivors say most of those killed in last weekend’s airstrikes on Rafah were children, including 16 from one family.

In the past five weeks, more than 230 people have been killed in airstrikes in Rafah, and three-quarters of the victims were women and children, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, states that more than 13,000 children have been murdered in Gaza since October 7, with thousands more orphans and wounded. UN Women says that, on average, two mothers have been killed per hour in Gaza since the beginning of the war.

Anas Baba reported from Rafah. Aya Batrawy reported from Dubai.

Aya Batrawy reported from Dubai. Anas Baba reported from Rafah.