Newborn saved from dead mother’s womb after Israel attacks Gaza hospital

Palestinian Territories:

A Gaza hospital said on Saturday it had saved a baby boy from his mother’s womb after she died from injuries suffered in an Israeli attack.

Ola Adnan Harb al-Kurd, who was nine months pregnant, narrowly survived a grueling night of missile attacks that rescue services across Hamas-controlled territory said killed more than 24 people, including six members of Hamas. family.

But when Kurd arrived at Al-Awda Hospital, she was “almost dead,” according to surgeon Akram Hussein.

Doctors were unable to save the mother, but performed an ultrasound that detected the baby’s heartbeat.

They quickly performed an emergency cesarean section “and extracted the fetus,” the surgeon told AFP.

The newborn was initially in critical condition, but after receiving oxygen and medical care was stabilized, said Raed al-Saudi, head of the hospital’s obstetrics and gynecology department.

He was placed in an incubator and transferred to Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah.

Kurd was among three women and a child killed by an Israeli missile fired at the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, according to a doctor at Al-Awda Hospital. Her husband was also injured in the attack on the family home.

Israel did not confirm individual attacks, but a military statement said troops were “carrying out targeted attacks on terrorist infrastructure sites” in central Gaza.

Israel has intensified its offensive in several parts of the territory, in line with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s order to increase pressure on Hamas following attacks by Palestinian militants in southern Israel on October 7.

A man was killed in a drone strike while cycling on a street near the southern city of Khan Yunis, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.

Air strikes on two houses in the northern city of Gaza left six people dead each, according to the civil defense agency and paramedics.

Israel’s military statement said “troops eliminated a number of terrorists in several different encounters” and launched an operation in the Tal al-Sultan refugee camp, near the southern city of Rafah.

The war in Gaza has made childbirth increasingly dangerous, with pregnant women facing not only almost daily strikes that make access to health facilities difficult, but also widespread food insecurity, degrading sanitary conditions and water shortages.

The few hospitals that still operate have been stretched to the limit, according to humanitarian groups.

Premature births and maternal complications, including eclampsia, hemorrhage and sepsis, have been on the rise, Doctors Without Borders said this week.

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