Smoke rises from a building hit by an Israeli strike in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on July 20, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Agence France-Presse
PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES — Doctors in Gaza described delivering a newborn baby against incredible odds on Saturday, pulling him from his mother’s womb moments after she died of wounds sustained in an Israeli air strike.
At nine months pregnant, Ola Adnan Harb al-Kurd managed to survive just long enough to reach Al-Awda Hospital in central Gaza after an overnight strike hit her home in the Nuseirat refugee camp, medics said.
Emergency department doctors rushed into action when they saw the heavily pregnant woman arrive in critical condition, the head of the obstetrics and gynecology department, Raed al-Saudi, said.
READ: Incubated babies at risk in Gaza as hospital generators run low on fuel
She was taken to the operating room, but was already “almost dead”, surgeon Akram Hussein told AFP.
Unable to save the mother, who they said was in her 20s, doctors detected a heartbeat and a team of obstetricians and surgeons was called.
“An emergency caesarean section was performed, and the fetus was extracted,” Saudi said.
READ: Newborns in Gaza face steeper odds of survival
Kurd was among at least 30 people killed across the Gaza Strip in a punishing 24 hours of Israeli bombardment that killed six members of one family in a neighborhood north of Gaza City, rescuers and medics in Hamas-run Gaza said.
At least seven people were killed in overnight strikes on the Nuseirat refugee camp, a civil defense spokesperson said.
Medical sources at Al-Awda Hospital said four children from Nuseirat were wounded while playing on a roof, with one requiring an amputation.
Kurd’s husband was also wounded in the missile attack that hit their home, said surgeon Hussein.
After surviving the C-section, baby Malek Yassin faced further medical hurdles. Born in critical condition, he was stabilised after receiving oxygen and medical attention, Saudi said.
The war in Gaza has made childbirth increasingly perilous, with pregnant women facing near-daily strikes that hamper access to health facilities.
If they are able to reach a hospital, they find facilities that humanitarian groups say are stretched to breaking point.
Just 1,500 hospital beds are currently available to Gaza’s more than two million people, compared with 3,500 beds before the war, UN agencies have said.
Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat is the only medical facility that has been able to provide obstetric and gynecological care in central Gaza since the war began last year.
Pre-term deliveries and maternal complications, including eclampsia, hemorrhage and sepsis, have been rising, Doctors Without Borders said this week.
The Gaza war was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in Gaza, including 42 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 38,919 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry.