Gazans mourn baby who dies after being rescued from dead mother’s womb

RAFAH:

Relatives gathered at a tiny sandy grave in Gaza on Friday to bury a baby girl who lived just days after doctors took her from her dying mother’s womb following an Israeli airstrike.

The baby had been given the names Sabreen, after her dead mother, and Rouh, meaning “soul”.

Her mother, Sabreen al-Sakani al-Sheikh, 30 weeks pregnant, was seriously injured when Israeli airstrikes hit the family’s home in Rafah, the southernmost town in the besieged Gaza Strip, on Saturday night. The baby’s father Shukri and his three-year-old sister Malak were killed.

Doctors delivered the baby by caesarean section, but the mother died from her injuries. Dr Mohammed Salama, head of the neonatal emergency unit at Emirates Hospital, who was caring for the baby, said the infant was suffering from breathing 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 said. Reuters by phone.

Also read: Baby in Gaza saved from womb of mother killed by Israeli strikes

“She was born while her respiratory system was not 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.

“Perhaps if it wasn’t for Israel’s war on Gaza and the destruction of hospitals, we could have helped more children survive. But hospitals have been damaged and others destroyed, and our capabilities have been greatly limited.”

More than 34,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been confirmed killed in the six-month war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas fighters, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Israel denies that it deliberately targeted civilians in its campaign to eliminate Hamas.

Much of Gaza has been devastated by Israeli bombardment, and most of the enclave’s hospitals have been severely damaged, while those still operating lack electricity, drug sterilization equipment and other supplies.

The uncle of Sabreen al-Rouh, a Palestinian girl who died days after being rescued from the womb of her dying mother Sabreen al-Sheikh (al-Sakani), was killed in an Israeli strike along with her husband Shokri and daughter Malak , crouches next to her grave in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, April 26, 2024. PHOTO: REUTERS

The baby’s grandmother had pleaded with doctors to save it, “to keep the memory of her mother, father and sister alive, but it was God’s will that she die,” Salama said.

Her uncle, Rami al-Sheikh Jouda, sat at her grave on Friday mourning the loss of the infant and the rest of the family.

She said she visited the hospital every day to check on the baby’s health. Doctors told him he had breathing problems, but he didn’t think it was bad until he got a call from the hospital and was told the baby had died.

“Rue is gone, my brother, his wife and daughter, his brother-in-law and the home that brought us together is gone,” she said. Reuters.

“We are left with no memories of my brother, his daughter or his wife. Everything was lost, even their photos, their mobile phones, we couldn’t find them,” said the uncle.