The story of little Sabreen Jouda embodies a miracle. She came into the world on Sunday just moments after her mother tragically lost her life due to an Israeli airstrike in Rafah.
The newborn baby owes her existence to an emergency cesarean section performed on her mother’s lifeless body. Medical staff at the hospital, where the body was brought, discovered that the victim was pregnant.
“A baby girl was born here, the child of Sabreen Al-Sakani. She is a premature orphan. She was born in a critical respiratory distress condition. She was quickly transferred from Kuwait Hospital to Al-Hilal Al-Emirati Center. The baby has been receiving treatment since yesterday. Her health condition has somewhat improved, but the situation remains precarious. This respiratory distress syndrome is originally caused by premature birth. This child should have been in her mother’s womb at this time, but she was deprived of that right,” explained Mohammad Salameh, head of the neonatal intensive care unit at the Emirati maternity hospital in Rafah.
At the time of her mother’s killing, she was still in the womb at 30 weeks of gestation. While narrowly saved, the granddaughter was on the brink of death, struggling to breathe.
In addition to her mother, her father and 4-year-old sister were also killed in the Israeli airstrike that hit their home.