After their three children were killed in an Israeli strike on their home in Gaza City last year, Diana and Omar Al-Rubai were just days away from the expected arrival of their baby when they were killed in an airstrike last week.
Medical teams rushed to save Diana. But after she died in hospital shortly after the strike, doctors performed an emergency C-section, said a pediatrician involved in the newborn’s care, removing the boy from his mother’s womb a week before his due date.
“The doctors immediately rescued the baby and got him out,” Madalla Al-Rubai said as she stood in the hospital on Friday, holding her orphaned newborn grandson. “We’re very disheartened over the loss of [my] son, and daughter-in-law, but this is what God has written for us.”
‘Counting down the days’
Al-Rubai said they named the baby Hamza, a name that his father had hoped to give him.
“His father was counting down the days and the clock until his son’s birth, to be able to raise him.”
Baby Hamza arrived at Al-Helou International Hospital suffering from oxygen deficiency as a result of his mother’s critical condition following the airstrike and then her heart stopping while he was in utero, said Dr. Ziad Al-Masry, a pediatrician at the hospital.
But he said the baby is relatively healthy and expected to soon be released from the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).
Not the first such case in the NICU
There have been other babies like Hamza, other expectant mothers like Diana who have been hit by airstrikes in the final days of pregnancy, Al-Masry told CBC freelance videographer Mohamed El Saife. There are a significant number of similar babies that require intensive care.
“This is not the first such case,” Al-Masry said. “It has been a frequent occurrence for expectant mothers in their last trimester to be hit in strikes in the area that we’re in.
“This causes a great danger to the pregnant mothers and their premature babies.”
The Health Ministry in Gaza has appealed to the international community to protect Gaza City’s hospitals, warning of “a humanitarian catastrophe that threatens the lives of thousands of patients and wounded individuals.”
Medical teams saved the life of a premature baby via emergency C-section after his mother and father were killed in an Israeli strike on Sept. 4 at a tent camp in Gaza City. Madalla Al-Rubai, the baby’s grandmother, says the parents were looking forward to welcoming their newborn son after their three children were killed in the war last year
Hamza’s parents had been living in a tent shelter outside Al-Shifa Hospital, the enclave’s largest medical facility, in northern Gaza after their home was destroyed in March 2024 in the airstrike that killed their daughter and two sons.
The couple died following an Israeli airstrike on the area at noon on Sept. 4, the boy’s grandmother said.
CBC News reached out to the Israel Defence Forces about the more recent strike but did not receive a response.
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 64,000 people since it began nearly two years ago, according to the Health Ministry. It has destroyed swaths of the territory, reducing much of it to rubble and driving most Palestinians from their homes, displacing them multiple times.
UNICEF estimates that 50,000 children have been killed or injured during the campaign.
Among them are Hamza’s siblings: Dima, 10, Anas, eight and Mohammad, five. They were inside their home with their parents in March 2024, but only Diana and Omar were pulled from the rubble alive, their grandmother said in a recent interview with CBC freelance videographer Mohamed El Saife.
The 55-year-old grandmother said five of her grandchildren have been killed in the war — two girls and three boys — as well as her two sons.
“He will live among us, his aunts and uncles,” she said of Hamza. “May he come out like his father and uncles.
“What’s this child’s fault to have to live without a father or mother?”
Residents forced to evacuate as bombings continue
Much of Gaza City was laid to waste in the war’s initial weeks in October-November 2023. About a million people lived there before the war, and hundreds of thousands are believed to have returned to live among the ruins, especially since Israel ordered people out of other areas and launched offensives elsewhere.
On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned residents of Gaza City to leave immediately, hours after Israel said it would ramp up airstrikes on the enclave. But many residents stayed in place, saying there is nowhere safe to flee in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli forces have been operating on Gaza City’s outskirts since last month, and the military said it was in control of 40 per cent of the city already.
Israel’s recent attacks on Gaza City have targeted large residential buildings, saying they’re Hamas infrastructure. But the intensified strikes also is a message for civilians to get out before operations further expand.
Launching the new Israeli assault could complicate ceasefire efforts; hopes had been pinned on mediation efforts to reach a ceasefire that would avert Israel’s plan, but after Israel targeted Hamas negotiators in Qatar Tuesday, the chances of avoiding the assault are even slimmer.
The October 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israeli border communities triggering the war killed around 1,200 people, with the militant group seizing around 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Most of the hostages have been released in temporary ceasefires, but 50 hostages remain held by militants in Gaza, of which Israeli officials believe around 20 are still alive.
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