Twenty-eight premature babies arrived in Egypt in a convoy of ambulances from Gaza on Monday, according to an Egyptian government official, after the infants were evacuated from Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza. <\/p>\n
Four mothers and six nurses accompanied the babies, who will be sent to two separate hospitals in Egypt for treatment, the government source said. <\/p>\n
Two of the babies stayed at the Emirati\u2019s ICU unit \u2013 with one infant said to be in good health \u2013 and a third baby did not transfer to Egypt as his parents are currently in northern Gaza. The other 28 will be treated at the Al-Arish Hospital in Sinai and the New Capital Hospital in Cairo. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been waiting for them during the past few days. We have made all the preparations to receive the newborn babies with all the medical equipment needed for that,\u201d a doctor at Al-Arish, named Ahmad, told Egyptian state broadcaster Al Qahera Monday, adding some of the babies are in need of \u201cmore advanced medical measures.\u201d <\/p>\n
A mother of one of the premature babies transferred to a hospital in Egypt said it was the \u201cbest place on earth\u201d for her daughter to be. She told Egyptian state run pool that after a \u201cdifficult birth\u201d on September 28, her daughter had been placed in an incubator in Al-Shifa. <\/p>\n
\u201cOn the seventh of October, I was supposed to go and see my daughter. She was reliant on artificial respiration. Then they asked us to leave our house, then they bombed our house. So I went to Al Shifa Hospital. It never occurred to us that the hospital would be targeted and that those children would have to go through what they went through,\u201d Lubna El-Seik said Monday. <\/p>\n
After Israel announced a \u201cprecise and targeted\u201d operation in Al-Shifa and fighting began in the hospital complex, Al Seik said her daughter\u2019s condition deteriorated. \u201cShe relied solely on artificial oxygen,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Citing doctors at the Rafah hospital, the World Health Organization said earlier the babies were fighting serious infections and 11 were in \u201ccritical condition,\u201d due to a lack of medical supplies at Al-Shifa. <\/p>\n
UNICEF, which worked with UN agencies and PCRS to carry out the evacuation, warned Sunday that the babies\u2019 condition was \u201crapidly deteriorating.\u201d It said the evacuation took place in \u201cextremely dangerous conditions\u201d and followed the \u201ctragic death of several other babies, and total collapse of all medical services at Al-Shifa.\u201d <\/p>\n
Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza, has become a flashpoint in Israel\u2019s war in the besieged enclave. The Israeli military alleges the facility is being used by Hamas as a shield for its operations and raided the hospital last Wednesday. Hamas and hospital officials have denied Israel\u2019s claims. <\/p>\n
For days, relentless bombardment near the hospital trapped thousands of staff, patients and civilians sheltering inside, prompting public outcry, fueled by the details of the plight of newborn babies fighting for their lives. <\/p>\n
The WHO described Al-Shifa as a \u201cdeath zone\u201d with corridors \u201cfilled with medical and solid waste,\u201d after a United Nations team visited the hospital for an hour on Saturday to assess the deteriorating humanitarian situation. <\/p>\n
Palestinian authorities said several newborns have died due to power outages and a shortage of medical supplies; hospital staff described having to move babies by hand from incubators after running out of fuel and wrapping them in foil to keep them warm. <\/p>\n
Under growing pressure to provide evidence for its claim that Hamas is using Al-Shifa for military purposes, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Sunday released CCTV videos and still images it says show Hamas fighters bringing hostages into Al-Shifa on October 7, when Hamas launched its attack on southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and taking some 240 people into Gaza as hostages. <\/p>\n
Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati, the head of the hospital\u2019s burns unit, accused Israeli forces of pushing around staff, questioning them about Hamas and restricting staff movements after the raid last week. <\/strong> <\/p>\n \u201cThe common question (staff keep being asked): Do you know anything about the Hamas groups? Do you know anything about the tunnels within the hospital?\u201d the doctor said. <\/p>\n Egyptian health workers were photographed on Monday standing beside ambulances and incubators, waiting for the babies to arrive at the Rafah border, which has been used to bring in limited aid and evacuate foreign nationals. <\/p>\n It was hoped that the parents of the newborns would be able to travel to safety with their children, but the WHO said very few of the infants were accompanied by family members. <\/p>\n Gazan officials had \u201climited information\u201d and were not able to find close family members, the WHO said. <\/p>\n One father, Ali Sbeiti, was reunited with his young son Anas, who was born three days before the war began. <\/p>\n The intense fighting between Israel and Hamas, and a communications blackout across the enclave due to a lack of fuel, has complicated aid delivery efforts and made it more difficult for Palestinians to reach relief services. <\/p>\n WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Sunday further missions were being planned to evacuate the remaining patients and staff from Al-Shifa, \u201cpending guarantees of safe passage by parties to the conflict.\u201d <\/p>\n This is a developing story and will be updated.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n Twenty-eight premature babies arrived in Egypt in a convoy of ambulances from Gaza on Monday, according to an Egyptian government official, after the infants were evacuated from Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza. Four mothers and six nurses accompanied the babies, who will be sent to two separate hospitals in Egypt for treatment, the government source <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11906,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11905","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}