Doctors deliver baby via cesarean section after mother killed in Israeli airstrike
Still image taken from video showing doctors pumping air into newborn baby Sabreen. (Karim bin Akram via Storyful)
A newborn baby was left orphaned after her entire family was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah.
Sabreen Jouda was delivered via emergency cesarean section when her mother’s body was brought to a hospital in Kuwaiti.
Sabreen’s mother, Sabreen al-Sakani, was 30 weeks pregnant when she died.
Video shared on social media shows medical workers gently pumping Sabreen’s tiny body with air, attempting to save her life.
She barely survived.
Still image taken from video showing doctors trying to get Sabreen to respond.
Her father, 4-year-old sister and mother were all killed.
"We can say there is some progress in her health condition, but the situation is still at risk," said Dr. Mohammad Salameh, head of the Emirati hospital's neonatal intensive care unit. "This child should have been in the mother’s womb at this time, but she was deprived of this right."
Sabreen’s paternal grandmother, Ahlam al-Kurdi, will be her caretaker.
"Welcome to her. She is the daughter of my dear son. I will take care of her. She is my love, my soul. She is a memory of her father. I will take care of her," said al-Kurdi, as she clutched her chest and rocked with grief.
At least two-thirds of the more than 34,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza since this war began have been children and women, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
The other Israeli airstrike in Rafah overnight killed 17 children and two women from an extended family.
The Associated Press and Storyful contributed to this report. This story was reported from Los Angeles.