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After difficult weeks during which premature babies lived in tragic conditions at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Egyptian hospitals received, on Monday, 28 babies coming from the Gaza Strip, after a long journey and careful preparations, to ensure their safe arrival from the north of the Gaza Strip to its south, before finalizing arrangements for their transfer to receive care. Health.

Egyptian Minister of Health Khaled Abdel Ghaffar announced the arrival of the children in front of Al-Arish General Hospital in North Sinai, which alone received 16 premature babies, while 12 other children were transferred to Al-Arish Airport in preparation for their treatment in Cairo.

Asharq Al-Awsat accompanied the transfer of children from the Emirati Hospital in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, to Egyptian territory, and spoke to some families and doctors about their conditions after about 7 weeks of siege inside Al-Shifa Hospital.

Premature babies were evacuated from Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip, after it turned into a focus of Israeli military attacks in recent days, which ended with its evacuation. The evacuation operation, according to a statement by the Red Crescent, was coordinated by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Dr. Mahmoud Salama, head of the nursery department at the Emirates Hospital in Rafah, told Asharq Al-Awsat that 31 children arrived last Sunday (to the Emirates Hospital) after being evacuated from Al-Shifa Hospital, to receive care for 24 hours in preparation for their transfer for treatment in Egypt. But he explained that “some of the cases that arrived from Al-Shifa Hospital were not transferred to Egypt because their conditions improved.”

Regarding the children’s medical condition, Dr. Salama said that “their condition ranged from stable to severe,” noting that among them were “very difficult” cases that were dealt with directly, and most of them suffered from severe low temperatures and malnutrition, in addition to hypoglycemia and low blood levels.

Children who lost their parents

Medical sources in Al-Arish told Asharq Al-Awsat that “the children were accompanied by only 5 mothers and 5 nurses coming from the Emirati Hospital in Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip.” Ahmed Samir Abu Adam, one of the nurses accompanying the children, told Asharq Al-Awsat that they came with the children because their families were no longer there, stressing that “some of the children’s fathers and mothers are between martyrs and missing persons.”

Dr. Salama confirms the same information regarding the absence of the children’s parents, and said that there was not enough information available about them, as “each child arrived with only the mother’s name,” without other details and no addresses to contact their families. The doctor adds, “There is at least one child who has no information about him or his family, while there are children who have lost all of their families.”

Ibrahim Shamlakh, the uncle of one of the children, came to the Emirati Hospital, after medical teams called on the families of premature babies or their relatives to come to the hospital to identify and check on their children. He told Asharq Al-Awsat that contact with the child’s family in Gaza City was cut off, “and we do not know whether they are alive or dead,” adding that he came to check on the child and arrange his travel to complete treatment abroad.

Birth in war

Aya Al-Daour, the mother of two premature babies (twins), narrated a chapter of her suffering to Asharq Al-Awsat. She said that she gave birth to her baby on the fifth day of the war in Al-Shifa Hospital, and then returned to the northern Gaza Strip before having to move south towards the city of Khan Yunis, while The two girls remained inside the hospital’s premature ward.

She added, while she was in the Emirati hospital, that for 39 days she had not seen her daughters except at birth, continuing: “My heart remained broken for them throughout the past period… and anxiety and fear accompanied me constantly, especially when the threat of bombing (Al-Shifa) was made. “I came and checked on them, but they need more care.”

The World Health Organization reported on Monday that three premature babies who were part of a large group evacuated to Egypt remained in a hospital in southern Gaza to receive further treatment. A spokesman for the organization said in an email to Reuters: “28 children have now arrived safely in Egypt… and there are still 3 children in the Emirati hospital to continue receiving treatment.”

On Monday, the Egyptian Minister of Health also received 62 Palestinian oncology patients at Al-Arish Airport before they left for Turkey. This is the second batch of Gazans transferred to Turkey after two planes carried 27 Palestinian patients and 13 of their companions last Wednesday.

In the same context, the Egyptian Minister of Health, Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, discussed with the Minister of State for International Cooperation at the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lulwa Al-Khater, support for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, especially the wounded and injured. According to the Egyptian Ministry of Health, on Monday, the two sides discussed in Cairo “the necessary needs to continue providing medical services to our Palestinian brothers, whether inside hospitals in the Palestinian territories or by supporting efforts to receive and treat cases in Egyptian hospitals.”