(Rafah) “A feat”: in a devastated Gaza Strip where victims of the war are piling up, Palestinian doctors are pleased to have given birth by cesarean section to a baby whose injured mother was dying.
This one, Sabreen al-Sakani, arrived dying in an emergency room, seriously injured in the head and stomach in an Israeli airstrike which hit the family home, east of Rafah, people said. witnesses to the AFP.
“It was a miracle that she was still alive, despite her difficulty breathing,” Sahib al-Hams, surgeon and director of the Kuwait Specialist Hospital in Rafah (south), told AFP.
It was while examining this woman that the medical teams at this hospital noticed that she was pregnant and decided to perform a cesarean section without delay, despite the impossibility of performing anesthesia.
“The mother died ten minutes later,” says Dr. al-Hams, adding that the baby’s father and sister arrived at the hospital dead.
At least 19 people were killed in the strike that hit this house, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
The newborn was transferred to the pediatric unit of the UAE field hospital.
“We quickly placed her in an incubator, put her on oxygen and treated with antibiotics,” explains Haidar Abu Snimeh, a manager of this structure launched in December 2023 to respond to the humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian coastal territory, to AFP.
“Saved from her mother’s womb”
According to the hospital, the baby’s condition was stable as of Tuesday morning. Many local media reported her story, some specifying that she weighed less than two kilos or that her mother was 30 weeks pregnant, in her seventh month of pregnancy.
Her paternal uncle, Rami al-Sheikh, explained to AFP that he would take care of the little orphan when she left the hospital.
“I am ready to give her my life,” he declared, explaining that he had called her Sabreen-Rouh, a first name made up of her mother’s first name and that of her older sister and her father. ; and which can be translated as “the soul of Sabreen”.
“My brother’s daughter was saved from her mother’s womb,” he added, explaining that the bombed family home only housed “civilians.” “My brother was torn to pieces, I appeal to the whole world to save us from this genocide.” Israel has always denied this accusation.
“The fact that this little girl was born alive, despite the circumstances, is a feat,” comments Doctor Abu Snimeh, recalling that when a pregnant woman struggles to breathe, the fetus lacks oxygen, which can hinder its birth. development.
Images of the birth were widely distributed on Monday. They were filmed by Palestinian journalists, the Israeli authorities not allowing the international press to enter the Gaza Strip since the start of its massive military offensive more than six months ago.
“Martyr’s Baby”
These “images of a premature baby extracted from the uterus of his dying mother, of two neighboring houses where 15 children and five women were killed, this goes beyond the war,” declared the High Commissioner of the UN for Human Rights, Volker Türk.
A handful of similar births have been reported in the spit since the start of the war. On October 21, Mecca Abou Chamalah was born by post-mortem cesarean section, after her mother was seriously injured by an airstrike on her building in Rafah.
On the identification label stuck to the incubator, we could read: “Baby of the martyr Dareen Abou Chamalah”.
The war was sparked on October 7 by an unprecedented Hamas attack in southern Israel, which resulted in the death of 1,170 people, mainly civilians, according to an AFP report based on official Israeli data.
In response, Israel promised to wipe out the Palestinian Islamist movement, in power in Gaza since 2007, and launched an offensive which has so far left 34,183 dead, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
The continuous bombings have left a large part of the territory in ruins.
According to the UN, 1.5 million Palestinians, the majority displaced, are massed in Rafah and live under the threat of an Israeli military offensive.
reference: www.lapresse.ca