Gaza baby delivered by emergency C-section is orphaned before she's even born
A baby girl born in Gaza became an orphan before she even entered the world after she was delivered by emergency caesarean when her mother died.
Doctors tried to save the baby girl after the young mother, Hanadi Abu Amsha, was killed in an air strike, according to reports by Palestinian news outlets. After the young mother died, doctors quickly removed the baby from her womb and treated her in an incubator.
The baby girl is currently in the intensive care unit at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, which is in central Gaza, according to reports. It is presumed that all of the child's family are dead. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital was recently described as the "stuff of nightmares" by an American doctor.
Photos shared from the hospital yesterday show the tiny baby being cared for by nurses working there. She is pictured in the incubator being fed with a bottle. The baby was brought to the hospital in December, the Palestinian Wafa News Agency said in a video report.
The baby girl is being cared for in the intensive care unit of the hospital (Anadolu via Getty Images)It is believed her mother was killed at the site of where a school once stood in Gaza, although this has not been independently verified. The newborn girl initially struggled for oxygen when she was born, but this was expected after her mother died.
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And as yet the authorities have been unable to track down any other relatives of the baby. It is understood that she will be put up for adoption when she has been nursed back to health at the hospital.
Estimates suggest around 10,000 children, or one in every 150, have been killed since the war broke out. And nearly 20,000 babies have been born into conditions ‘beyond belief’ in Gaza since last October, according to UNICEF, the UN children’s agency.
The organisation last week described Gaza as the “most dangerous place in the world to be a child” as the war continues. Speaking after his most recent visit to Gaza, Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF Ted Chaiban said Gaza’s situation has moved from “catastrophic to near collapse”.
(Anadolu via Getty Images)He added: “This is a war against children. But these truths do not seem to be getting across. Of the nearly 25,000 people who have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the escalation of hostilities, up to 70% are women and children.”
It is believed pressure from the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) on the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital has increased in recent days, with people inside believed to be fleeing for their lives, according to Al Jazeera. In an NPR report on 10 January, Dr Seema Jilani from the US described how in the hospital there were “children lying on the ground, a double amputation on one child, and there are no beds available”.
She added: “There's not really room or space for us to breathe or think. I've always told myself there's not much we can do in medicine, but we can treat pain and it's no longer true anymore, so we cannot even offer any comfort here. There is no death with dignity when you're lying on the ground of an emergency room in Gaza.”
She described how the hospital is close to collapse, with 500 patients arriving in a single night and a severe lack of supplies to treat people.
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