Gaza
A group of toddlers evacuated as premature infants just a month into the Israel-Hamas war returned Monday to families overjoyed yet worried about their futures in a transformed Gaza.
Families gathered at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis to receive the children, hoisting them into embraces as celebratory crowds watched.
Some said early on they did not know whether their newborns had survived and others said it felt like they were meeting their children for the first time.
The infants were early symbols of the collateral damage facing civilians in Gaza after Israel launched an offensive the day after Hamas-led militants staged a deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel said Hamas militants who orchestrated the attack used hospital complexes as military command centers and early in the war doctors and people sheltering inside them reported constant shelling and rapidly deteriorating conditions.
The Red Crescent and World Health Organization helped evacuate Shifa Hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit in November 2023 when Israel invaded northern Gaza and besieged the complex.
As forces closed in, staff reported dwindling supplies and shortages of fuel and medicine. Doctors reported babies in the neonatal unit dying amid shortages and without electricity, which made it diffcult to keep them adequately warm and fed with milk form sterilized bottles. They swaddled the infants in blankets, took them from the shut-off incubators and laid them aside each other in hospital beds to replicate the heat.
Joyful reunions and worry about the future
Samer Lulu, whose daughter Kinda was among the premature babies evacuated, said being reunited with her marked the most important moment of his life. Yet worries about what the future holds for Gaza and its more than 2 million residents tempered his rejoice.
“Our feelings are mixed with pain because of the reality we live in,” Lulu said. “We hope that the future of our children will not be filled with the tragedy or suffering they faced at the beginning of their lives.”
Ola Hijji was about seven months pregnant when the war began and eight when she gave birth to her son Sulaiman less than a month later.
After he was born in critical condition, he was swept away to the neonatal intensive care unit. She hadn’t seen him since and said being reunited felt indescribable.
An Israeli official said 11 of the toddlers along with seven caretakers evacuated with them were permitted to return on Monday with the help of UNICEF. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. The toddlers are among a larger group of Palestinians returning to Gaza from Egypt through the partially reopened Rafah crossing.
The border reopened to a limited number of Palestinian returnees in February, though crossings have remained restricted, including during the opening weeks of the Iran war, when it was shut completely. Before being evacuated to Egypt, they were taken elsewhere in Gaza after the Shifa’s power was cut and medical supplies ran out.
Hospital officials said four of the infants died before they could be evacuated, while doctors determined those able to relocate were suffering from dehydration, hypothermia and sepsis.
Ahmed Al-Farra, a doctor at Nasser Hospital’s Pediatrics said among the initial group of evacuated infants, four had died in the nearly 2½ years since. The reunification was a bittersweet moment, Al-Farra said, “filled with many messages – sadness, and the joy of being reunited with their loved ones.”
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