The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)

Gaza baby rescued from dead mother’s womb dies after 5 days

- MOHAMMAD JAHJOUH & WAFAA SHURAFA

A PREMATURE Palestinia­n infant, rescued from her mother's womb shortly after the woman was killed in an Israeli airstrike, has died, her uncle said Friday.

Sabreen Jouda died in a Gaza hospital on Thursday after her health deteriorat­ed and medical teams were unable to save her, said her uncle, Rami al- Sheikh.

Sabreen's home in the southern Gaza city of Rafah was hit by an Israeli airstrike shortly before midnight Saturday. Her parents and 4- year- old sister were killed.

First responders took the bodies to a nearby hospital, where medical workers performed an emergency caesarean section on her mother, Sabreen al- Sakani, who was 30 weeks pregnant. The infant was kept in an incubator in a neonatal intensive care unit at another hospital until she died five days later.

Al- Sheikh told The Associated Press that Sabreen was buried next to her father on Thursday. “We were attached 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 after 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 left behind.”

( Reuters adds: Dr Mohammad Salama, head of the emergency neonatal unit at Emirati Hospital, who had been caring for her, said, “She was born while her respirator­y system wasn't mature, and her immune system was very weak and that led to her death.”)

 ?? ?? The debris of a house in Rafah after an Israeli strike. Reuters
The debris of a house in Rafah after an Israeli strike. Reuters

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