Sabreen Jouda, who was delivered prematurely after her mother was killed in an Israeli strike along with her husband and daughter, has lost her fight for life aged 5 days. She's pictured in an incubator in the Emirati hospital in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip aged 1 day. AP Photo/Mohammad Jahjouh
Sabreen Jouda, who was delivered prematurely after her mother was killed in an Israeli strike along with her husband and daughter, has lost her fight for life aged 5 days. She's pictured in an incubator in the Emirati hospital in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip aged 1 day. AP Photo/Mohammad Jahjouh
The Kiwi family of a premature Palestinian baby cut from her mother’s womb soon after the woman was killed in an Israeli airstrike are reeling after the infant lost her fight for life.
“[She] could have grown up to be an amazing person, achieved a lot of things, but that’s all gone”, Mohammed Gouda told 1News as he called on Kiwis to remember the humanity of innocent lives lost in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Sabreen Jouda died in a hospital in Gaza on Thursday after her health deteriorated and medical teams were unable to save the newborn, who was delivered at 30 weeks’ gestation by emergency caesarean section last Saturday, her uncle Rami al-Sheikh told AP.
Her parents Shukri and Sabreen Joudeh, and 4-year-old sister, were all killed when their home in the southern Gaza city of Rafah was hit in the airstrike.
Her Kiwi family couldn’t be contacted today, but told 1News last night they were heartbroken.
Sabreen’s father was the son of a cousin of New Zealand-based Dr Abdullah Gouda, who is now on his way to join an aid flotilla heading into Gaza because “as a doctor, I should be there”.
He’s previously spoken of losing more than 100 relatives in the conflict.
Gouda’s son Mohammed told 1News it was hard to comprehend what had happened in the place he called home in his early childhood years.
“They have dreams and hopes like us, but we have all this. We can achieve, but they can’t. Most they can dream of is food, and work … we are not really coping, just living as much as we can.”
Everyone involved in the conflict needed to remember the humanity that was being lost, he told 1News.
“Try to look at the story from all points of view even if you have a different perspective, think of the innocent lives that are lost.”
Sabreen Jouda, who was delivered prematurely after her mother was killed in an Israeli strike along with her husband and daughter, pictured in an incubator in the Emirati hospital in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip on April 21. The baby died on April 25. AP Photo / Mohammad Jahjouh
Sabreen, named for her mother and nurtured in a hospital neonatal intensive care unit until her death, was buried next to her father on Thursday, Al-Sheikh - her uncle - told AP.
“We were attached to this baby in a crazy way. God had taken something from us but given us something in return.
“But (now) he has taken them all. My brother’s family is completely wiped out.”
Baby Sabreen Jouda was named for her mother. Sabreen means patience in Arabic. AP Photo/Mohammad Jahjouh
More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed during the Israel-Hamas war, according to local health officials, who say about two-thirds of the dead are women and children.
Health officials don’t differentiate among combatants and civilians in their count, AP reported.
Fire and smoke rise following an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City last October. Photo / AP
Israel declared war on Hamas and unleashed a pulverising air and ground offensive in Gaza in response to the militants’ October 7 attack on southern Israel. The militants killed about 1200 people in Israel and took another 250 hostage.
More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have sought refuge in Rafah, where Israel has conducted near-daily raids as it prepares for a possible offensive in the city, AP reported today.
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