Gaza: Baby Sabreen, rescued from dying mother’s womb is dead

By Francesca Sabatinelli

Baby Sabreen Jouda lived for only five days; her immune system was too weak to survive. Despite the efforts of the doctors, the baby passed away and now rests buried next to her mother, who was killed in Israeli bombings, along with her husband and their other three-year-old daughter.

"She has joined her family as a martyr," repeats Mohammad Salama, head of the neonatal emergency unit at the hospital. He's the one who tried in every way to save the child and says it has been "personally very difficult and painful" to lose her.

The love of the healthcare workers 

The story and photos of Sabreen – who was named after her mother - as she came to the world in the southern Gaza city of Rafah hit by an Israeli airstrike shortly before midnight on Saturday, made the headlines across the globe, stoking hopes she would manage to stay alive.

The doctors at the Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah, who delivered her by performing an emergency cesarean section on her seven-month-pregnant dying mother, had hoped that the support of an incubator in the neonatal intensive care unit of another hospital would keep her alive.

Unfortunately, the skill and love of those doctors and healthcare workers were not enough to save her.

Child victims

While Israel continues to deny it deliberately targets civilians in the Gaza Strip in its war against Hamas, the number of children who have been killed in the strikes is skyrocketing. About 15,000 children have died in the enclave since 7 October 2023, according to sources in the Strip, some 30 of whom have died of hunger and acute dehydration while in hospital.