Palestinian baby girl, Sabreen Jouda, who was delivered prematurely after her mother was killed in an Israeli strike along with her husband and daughter, lies in an incubator in the Emirati hospital in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip on April 21, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP
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 on April 26.
Sabreen Jouda died in a Gaza hospital on April 25 after her health deteriorated and medical teams were unable to save her, said her uncle, Rami al-Sheikh.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Ms. Sabreen’s home in the southern Gaza city of Rafah was hit by an Israeli airstrike shortly before midnight on April 20. Her parents and 4-year-old sister were killed.
First responders took the bodies to a nearby hospital, where medical workers performed an emergency cesarean 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.
Mr. Al-Sheikh told The Associated Press that Ms. Sabreen was buried next to her father on April 25.
More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed during the Israel-Hamas war, according to local health officials, who say about two-thirds of the dead are women and children. The health officials don’t differentiate among combatants and civilians in their count.
Israel declared war on Hamas and unleashed a pulverizing air and ground offensive in Gaza in response to the militants’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. The militants killed about 1,200 people in Israel and took another 250 hostage.
More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have sought refuge in Rafah, where Israel has conducted near-daily raids as it prepares for a possible offensive in the city.
