RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Sabreen Jouda was born seconds after his mother left him.
Their house was hit by an Israeli airstrike shortly before midnight on Saturday. Until that moment, the family was like so many other Palestinians trying to find safety from the war in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost town.
Sabreen’s father was killed. His 4-year-old sister was killed. His mother was killed.
But emergency services learned that his mother, Sabreen al-Sakani, was 30 weeks pregnant. Rushing to the Kuwaiti hospital where the bodies were taken, medical staff performed an emergency cesarean section.
Little Sabreen was near death herself, struggling to breathe. Her small body lay in a recovery position on a small piece of carpet while medical staff gently pumped air into her open mouth. A gloved hand patted his chest.
She survived.
On Sunday, hours after the airstrike, she was moaning and squirming in an incubator in the neonatal intensive care unit of the nearby Emirati hospital. She was wearing a diaper too big for her and her identity was written in pen on a piece of tape around her chest: “The baby of martyr Sabreen al-Sakani.”
“We can say that there is progress in his health, but the situation remains at risk,” said Dr. Mohammad Salameh, head of the unit. “This child should have been in her mother’s womb at that time, but she was deprived of that right.”
He described her as a premature orphan.
But she is not alone.
“Welcome to her home. She is the daughter of my dear son. I’ll take care of her. She is my love, my soul. She is a memory of her father. I will take care of her,” said Ahalam al-Kurdi, her paternal grandmother. She clutched her chest and swayed in sorrow.
At least two-thirds of the more than 34,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza since the start of this war were children and women, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
The other Israeli airstrike in Rafah killed 17 children and two women from an extended family overnight.
Not everyone recovers immediately after such attacks.
“My son was also with them. My son became body parts and they haven’t found him yet. They don’t recognize him,” said Mirvat al-Sakani, Sabreen’s maternal grandmother. “They have nothing to do with anything. Why are they targeting them? We don’t know why, how? We do not know.”
On Sunday, survivors buried the dead. Children wrapped in blood were placed in body bags and thrown into the dusty ground as families cried.
The little boys watched and tried to keep their footing at the edge of a grave.
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See more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
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