In a scene where tears mingled with laughter, and mothers regained a part of their souls that were forcibly taken away in the first moments of the war, a number of premature babies returned to the arms of their families in Gaza, after two heavy years of absence.These children, who were born in critical health conditions inside Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City during the Israeli occupation’s siege of the complex in November 2023, had been forcibly separated from their families to receive treatment outside the Strip, on a mysterious journey in which the families did not know whether it would end with a new meeting or with a permanent loss.33 children were inside the nursery section of the hospital, and their water, electricity and oxygen were cut off, forcing doctors under bombardment to move them to a safer, extremely dangerous place.After 10 days of siege and Israeli bombardment, these children were evacuated to the Arab Republic of Egypt under the supervision of the director of the complex, Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya, and under difficult and complex conditions.In those days, mothers were not given the chance to say goodbye or even a final hug. Premature babies left the incubators into the unknown, amid communication outages and a lack of information, leaving families suspended between hope and fear, waiting for any news that would reassure them that their children were still alive.
Hope for a meetingFatima Dakka, the mother of the child Jude, told Safa News Agency: “In November, at the beginning of the war, I was staying at Al-Shifa Hospital after my son Jude was born prematurely. The hospital was besieged, and Jude remained there. I couldn’t reach him at all, until news arrived that the occupation had killed all the premature babies, and I lost hope that he was alive.”She adds, “After the siege of Al-Shifa Hospital ended, I began searching for a glimmer of hope in reaching any source of information that would indicate that Jude was alive.””As the days passed, fate decreed that my sister-in-law would leave the sector on a medical trip with her child. There, she recognized Jude by the name bracelet on his wrist, and told us that he was still alive. She began sending us some pictures of him and following his life.”Dakka indicates that after she had lost hope of ever seeing him again, her spirit returned and she began planning to meet him in any way possible, even planning to travel to meet him as well.She continues, “Two days before meeting Jude, my sister-in-law told me about the return of the premature babies to the Gaza Strip, until I received a call from UNICEF informing me of the date and time of their arrival in the Strip.”Dakka was unable to describe the moment she hugged her son, after losing hope of ever seeing him again, saying: “At that moment I felt that my soul had returned to me, and a part of my soul that I had lost had returned after a long absence.”Forced absenceTwo years passed as if they were a lifetime. The children grew up far from the voices of their mothers, and learned the first life without the warmth of family.Meanwhile, mothers were following the news, knocking on the doors of institutions, and keeping small unused clothes, hoping for a long-awaited return.When the moment of return came, it was not just an administrative procedure, but a deeply moving human scene: mothers embracing their children for the first time since their birth, and fathers trying to recognize features that had been missing for so long.Some children did not recognize their parents immediately, while mothers broke down crying, as if they were making up for two years of absence in one moment, and others did not have the opportunity to hug their mothers, like the child Ibrahim Badr, whose mother was martyred only one month after he left the sector.His father, Jabri Bader, told Safa News Agency: “Ibrahim was born a month early and needed to go to the nursery and stay there with his mother, until the storming of Al-Shifa Hospital came and everyone who was there was transferred to the southern part of the Gaza Strip, so that he and his mother would leave.”He adds, “After my wife arrived in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, I contacted her to find out where her country was. She told me that she was in one place and did not know where Ibrahim was, and she started looking for him in the hospitals of the Gaza Strip to no avail.”an indescribable feelingBadr continues, “After a month of losing hope of ever seeing Ibrahim again, I received news of my wife’s martyrdom in a bombing near her residence, and I lost hope of ever seeing my child again, until I decided to inquire through Al-Shifa Hospital about the fate of premature babies there.””All hope and contact with my child was lost until some friends told me that a number of premature babies had been deported to Egypt, and I received news through one of them that my child was there.”He indicates that he made a number of contacts with Palestinians there, and they were able to reach him and send him some pictures of Ibrahim.He confirms that last Monday he received a phone call from UNICEF informing him of Ibrahim’s arrival in the Gaza Strip, along with a group of premature babies.Premature babies in Gaza
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