Saudi to host top Arab and EU diplomats for Gaza talks
The baby’s mother, Sabreen, 30 weeks pregnant, was seriously injured when the Israeli strike hit the family home in Rafah; the infant was kept in an incubator until she died five days later
RIYADH: Top Arab and European diplomats are expected to begin arriving in the Saudi capital this weekend for an economic summit and meetings on the war in Gaza, diplomatic officials said on Friday.
The two-day World Economic Forum special meeting, scheduled to begin in Riyadh on Sunday, includes in its official programme appearances by the Saudi, Jordanian, Egyptian and Turkish foreign ministers.
A Gaza-focused session on Monday is set to feature newly appointed Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly and Sigrid Kaag, the United Nations aid coordinator for the Gaza Strip.
French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne is among European officials travelling to Riyadh during the summit for talks on the war.
“Discussions with European, American and regional counterparts on Gaza and the regional situation are planned in Riyadh,” a diplomatic source said on Friday.
Sejourne’s objectives for the trip include working towards the release of hostages seized during the Hamas atack and achieving a lasting ceasefire, said Christophe Lemoine, spokesperson for the French foreign ministry.
He will also travel to Israel and the Palestinian territories and plans to “reiterate to the Israelis our firm opposition to an offensive on Rafah,” Lemoine said, referring to the southern city where much of Gaza’s population has sought refuge.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is due to arrive on Monday in Riyadh to meet officials including Kaag, said spokesperson Sebastian Fischer.
“The visit will be about working on the many different flashpoints of the crisis in the Middle East, on de-escalation and on making progress towards a peaceful future,” Fischer told reporters in Berlin on Friday.
“As you all know, the Gulf states also have an important role to play here.”
CHINA WILL HOST UNITY TALKS: China will host Palestinian unity talks between Hamas and Fatah, the two groups and a Beijing-based diplomat said on Friday, a notable Chinese foray into Palestinian diplomacy amid the war in the Gaza Strip.
A Fatah official told Reuters a delegation, led by the group’s senior official Azzam Al Ahmed, had let for China. A Hamas official said the faction’s team for the talks, led by senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk, would be flying there later on Friday.
“We support strengthening the authority of the Palestinian National Authority, and support all Palestinian factions in achieving reconciliation and increasing solidarity through dialogue and consultation,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin at a regular briefing on Friday, without confirming the meeting.
STUDENTS OCCUPY PARIS UNIVERSITY CAMPUS: Students in Paris inspired by Gaza solidarity encampments at campuses in the United States blocked access to a campus building at a prestigious French university on Friday, prompting administrators to move all classes online.
The pro-palestinian protest at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, known as Sciences Po, came two days ater police broke up a separate demonstration at the university’s amphitheater outside one of its Paris campuses.
On Friday, scores of protesters occupied a central campus building and dozens of others blocked its entrance with trash cans, wooden plaforms and a bicycle. Protesters gathered at the building’s windows chanted slogans and hung placards reading “We are all Palestinians,” in defiance of administrators who students say called the police on their peers two days earlier.
On Wednesday evening, more than 100 propalestinian protesters occupied the amphitheater outside one of the university’s Paris campuses. Most agreed to leave ater discussions with management but a small group of students remained. They were removed by police later that night, according to French media reports.
BABY SAVED FROM DYING MOTHER’S WOMB DIES: A baby girl saved from her dying mother’s womb in Gaza Strip has died, her uncle told AFP on Friday. Sabreen Al Rouh was the only surviving member of her immediate family ater she was delivered by Caesarean section while her mother lay fatally wounded from an Israeli air strike at the weekend. The Emirati field hospital in Rafah said the premature baby died on Thursday “despite efforts by the neonatal unit staff” to keep her alive. Her uncle Rami Al Sheikh told AFP the hospital had called to say “her condition had worsened and they couldn’t save her.”
37MILLIONTONNESOFDEBRIS:THEREARESOME 37 million tonnes of debris to clear away in Gaza once the Israeli offensive is over, a senior official with the UN Mine Action Service said on Friday.
And unexploded ordnance buried in the rubble would complicate that work, said UNMAS’ Pehr Lodhammar, who has run mine programmes in countries such as Iraq.
It was impossible to say how much of the ammunition fired in Gaza remained live, said Lodhammar.
Relatives gathered by a tiny sandy grave in Gaza on Friday, where they had buried a baby girl, who lived just a few days ater doctors delivered her from the womb of her dying mother following an Israeli airstrike.
The baby had been given the name Sabreen, ater her dead mother, and Rouh, which means “soul.”
Her mother, Sabreen Al Sakani Al Sheikh, 30 weeks pregnant, was seriously injured when the Israeli strike hit the family home in Rafah, the southernmost city in the besieged Gaza Strip, on Saturday night. The baby’s father Shukri and three-year-old sister Malak were killed.
Doctors delivered the baby by Caesarean section, but the mother died of her wounds. Doctor Mohammad Salama, head of the emergency neo-natal unit at Emirati Hospital, who had been caring for the baby, said the infant suffered respiratory problems and a weak immune system, and died on Thursday.
“I and other doctors tried to save her, but she died. For me personally, it was a very difficult and painful day,” he told Reuters by phone.
“She was born while her respiratory system wasn’t mature, and her immune system was very weak and that is what led to her death. She joined her family as a martyr,” Salama said.
“Maybe if it weren’t for the Israeli war on Gaza and the devastation of hospitals, we would have been able to help more children survive. But hospitals were damaged and others destroyed and our capabilities have become much limited.”
More than 34,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been confirmed killed in the six-month-old war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, according to the Gaza health ministry.
The baby’s grandmother had pleaded for the doctors to save her, to “keep the memory of her mother, father and sister alive, but it was God’s will that she died,” Salama said.
Her uncle, Rami Al Sheikh, sat by her grave on Friday lamenting the loss of the infant and the others in the family.
He said he had visited the hospital every day to check on the baby’s health. Doctors told him she had a respiratory problem but he did not think it was bad until he got a call from the hospital telling him the baby had died.
“Rouh is gone, my brother, his wife and daughter are gone, his brother-in-law and the house that used to bring us together are gone,” he told Reuters. “We are let with no memories of my brother, his daughter, or his wife. Everything was gone, even their pictures, their mobile phones, we couldn’t find them,” the uncle said.
“We were atached to this baby in a crazy way,” he said, speaking near Sabreen’s grave in a cemetery in Rafah.
“God had taken something from us but given us something in return” with the baby surviving ater her family died, he said. “But (now) he has taken them all. My brother’s family is completely wiped out. It’s been deleted from the civil registry. There is no trace of him let behind.” Rami told AFP I opened her father Shukri’s grave and buried her there.
Witnesses told AFP the family’s house in Rafah was hit by an Israeli strike, which killed at least 19 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Al Rouh’s father and sister were among those killed. Al Ruh’s mother Sabreen reached the emergency unit at the city’s Kuwaiti hospital in a critical condition with wounds to the head and abdomen, and died shortly ater the baby was delivered. Doctors had described the baby’s survival as a “miracle” earlier this week. Al Rouh had been transferred to the Emirati field hospital, set up in December to cope with the besieged Palestinian territory’s mounting toll of injured and dead.
According to a United Nations official, the vast amount of rubble including unexploded ordnance let by Israel’s devastating war in the Gaza Strip could take about 14 years to remove.
Pehr Lodhammar, senior officer at the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS), told a briefing in Geneva that the war had let an estimated 37 million tonnes of debris in the widely urbanised, densely populated territory. He said that although it was impossible to determine the exact number of unexploded ordnance found in Gaza, it was projected that it could take 14 years under certain conditions to clear debris, including rubble from destroyed buildings.