Twenty-nine premature babies arrived in Egypt, Egyptian media says, after they were evacuated from Gaza’s largest hospital which has become a focal point of Israel’s war with Hamas.
The infants were evacuated yesterday from the Al-Shifa hospital as Israel works to uncover what it says are Hamas bases in tunnels underneath the facility. The World Health Organization has described the hospital as a “death zone.”
An initial 31 babies were reported evacuated from Al-Shifa to another Gaza clinic and it was not immediately clear why only 29 arrived in Egypt.
- Some mothers of the premature babies were present at the crossing, one woman described the ordeal of having to leave her baby inside al-Shifa while she evacuated south.
Egyptian media reported on Monday morning that the babies had successfully been transported across the border, a day after they were evacuated from Gaza’s largest hospital, which has become a focal point of Israel’s war with Hamas.
- “The coordination of this vital mission was at the request of Egypt and the director of the Shifa Hospital. The evacuation was carried out by UN teams with the assistance of IDF teams on the ground. Israeli incubators were provided to Shifa hospital for the babies’ rescue effort,” COGAT said.
- UPDATE: Thirty-one babies were evacuated from al-Shifa hospital.
- Reportedly three of the babies have remained in Gaza because the families of two of them want them to remain there for “personal reasons”, and because a third is unidentified.
- A medical spokesperson told the BBC that the babies remaining in Gaza were in a stable condition.
Source: TOI and The Guardian
Published by