Baby delivered from dying mother’s womb in Gaza ‘miracle’

A medic holds a Palestinian newborn girl after she was pulled alive from the womb of her mother Sabreen Al-Sheikh (Al-Sakani), who was killed in an Israeli strike, along with her husband Shokri and her daughter Malak in the southern Gaza Strip. (REUTERS)
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Updated 24 April 2024
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Baby delivered from dying mother’s womb in Gaza ‘miracle’

  • Israel has killed at least 34,183 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory
  • UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said on Tuesday, “The latest images of a premature child taken from the womb of her dying mother, of the adjacent two houses where 15 children and five women were killed — this is beyond warfare”

RAFAH, Palestinian Territories: Under a ceaseless storm of strikes in Gaza, a baby girl has survived insurmountable odds as the only member of her family left alive after she was delivered by Caesarian section as her mother lay dying.
At just seven months pregnant, her mother, Sabreen Al-Sakani, reached the emergency unit in critical condition after she was fatally wounded in the head and abdomen at the weekend.
An Israeli air strike hit her family’s house in the east of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, witnesses told AFP.




A Palestinian baby girl, saved from the womb of her mother Sabreen Al-Sheikh (Al-Sakani), who was killed in an Israeli strike along with her husband Shokri and her daughter Malak, lies in an incubator at Al-Emirati hospital in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip April 21, 2024. (REUTERS)

“It’s a miracle that she was still alive, despite her difficulties in breathing,” Sahib Al-Shams, a surgeon and director of the Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah, told AFP.
While examining Sakani, the hospital’s medical team realized she was pregnant.
They decided to go ahead with a C-section immediately, despite a lack of anaesthetics.
“The mother died 10 minutes later,” Shams said, adding that the baby’s father and sister had been declared dead on arrival at the hospital.
Hospital staff said the baby was in stable condition on Tuesday morning.




People wait before destroyed buildings in cleared area by the coastline for humanitarian aid packages to drop over the northern Gaza Strip on April 23, 2024 amid the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian territory between Israel and the militant group Hamas. (AFP)

At least 19 people died in the air strike on the Sakani family home, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
The newborn was transferred to the paediatrics unit of the Emirati hospital, a field hospital established in December in Rafah to cope with the besieged Palestinian territory’s mounting toll of injured and dead.
“We quickly put her in an incubator, put her on oxygen and treated her with antibiotics,” Haidar Abu Snimeh, an official at the Emirati hospital, told AFP.




Palestinians mourn over the bodies of relatives killed in Israeli bombardment, at the al-Najar hospital in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on April 21, 2024 amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. (AFP)

Rami Al-Sheikh, the baby’s uncle, will become the orphan’s caretaker upon her release from the hospital.
“Every day, I go to the hospital to check on my brother’s daughter who was rescued from her mother’s womb,” Sheikh told AFP.
“I named her ‘Sabreen Al-Ruh’ because her father wanted to name her Ruh,” he added, referring to the Arabic word for soul.
Several local media said the baby weighed less than two kilogrammes, and that her mother had been in her seventh month of pregnancy when she was born.
“The fact that this little girl was born alive despite the circumstances is nothing short of a great feat,” Abu Snimeh said.
He added that when a pregnant woman like Sakani struggles to breathe, the fetus lacks oxygen, which can hinder its development.
Palestinian journalists filmed the birth, footage of which was widely circulated Monday.
The war between Israel and Hamas erupted when the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7.
The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,170 Israelis and foreigners, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel vowed to eliminate Hamas, and its ensuing military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 34,183 people, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
More than 1.5 million of 2.4 million Gazans were estimated to have taken refuge in Rafah, in the far south on the border with Egypt, though thousands have since been seen heading back north.
A handful of similar births were reported in the coastal territory.
Makkah Abu Chamalah was born by post-mortem C-section on October 21, after his mother was critically wounded by an air strike on their home in Rafah.
The identification tag pinned to his incubator read “baby of the martyr Dareen Abu Chamalah.”
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said on Tuesday, “The latest images of a premature child taken from the womb of her dying mother, of the adjacent two houses where 15 children and five women were killed — this is beyond warfare.”
 

 


Netanyahu appoints Yechiel Leiter as new ambassador to US

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Netanyahu appoints Yechiel Leiter as new ambassador to US

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed US-born Yechiel Leiter, an official who previously served as chief of staff in the finance ministry, as the next Israeli ambassador to the United States.
“Yechiel Leiter is a highly capable diplomat, an eloquent speaker, and possesses a deep understanding of American culture and politics,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
His appointment was also welcomed by Yisrael Ganz, the head of the Yesha Council, an umbrella organization representing councils of Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a territory Palestinians want as part of a future state.
Ganz said Leiter, who lives in the Gush Etzion settlement area, as “a key partner in English-language advocacy for Judea and Samaria,” a name used by many Israelis for the West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
Leiter’s appointment came three days after Donald Trump’s election to a second term as US president, celebrated by many Israelis because of his strong support for Israel.
As well as serving in the finance ministry, Leiter also held positions as deputy director general in the Education Ministry and acting chairman of the Israel Ports Company.
His son was killed last year in the Gaza war against Palestinian militant group Hamas while serving with the Israeli military.

Jordan’s King Abdullah returns home after meetings with King Charles, Keir Starmer during UK visit

Updated 5 min 35 sec ago
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Jordan’s King Abdullah returns home after meetings with King Charles, Keir Starmer during UK visit

  • King Abdullah met Starmer at Downing Street on Wednesday to discuss Middle East crises
  • Meeting with Charles III marked the Jordanian monarch’s silver jubilee — 25 years since ascending to the throne

LONDON: King Abdullah II of Jordan returned home on Friday following a working visit to the UK.

The visit this week featured key engagements with King Charles III and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Earlier in the visit, King Abdullah met Starmer at Downing Street on Wednesday, where discussions reinforced the close ties between the two kingdoms, Jordan News Agency reported.

They also called for an immediate ceasefire and stronger efforts for de-escalation and humanitarian aid in Gaza.

They warned that Israel’s ban on UNRWA activities could worsen the humanitarian crisis and highlighted the need to address violence in the West Bank.

The King emphasized the UK’s crucial role in seeking resolutions to regional conflicts and achieving a just, comprehensive peace based on a two-state solution, JNA added.

King Abdullah then met Charles at Windsor Castle on Thursday.

The occasion marked the Jordanian monarch’s silver jubilee — 25 years since ascending to the throne — and King Charles commemorated the milestone by presenting King Abdullah with a specially engraved silver beaker, featuring the ciphers of the king and queen.

The formal welcome at Windsor began with the Jordanian monarch receiving a royal salute, accompanied by the Jordanian national anthem.

Major Edward Emlyn-Williams, the captain of the guard, invited King Abdullah, in Arabic, to inspect the guard, followed by a military march-past.

The two kings exchanged conversation as they interacted with the guards before proceeding into the castle for tea.

The long-standing relationship between the two monarchs was highlighted by King Charles’s five visits to Jordan as Prince of Wales, most recently in 2021. King Abdullah’s last visit to Charles took place at Buckingham Palace in November 2022.

King Abdullah’s visit comes months after his son and heir, Crown Prince Hussein, and Crown Princess Rajwa welcomed their daughter, Princess Iman, in August.

Britain’s Prince and Princess of Wales attended the wedding of Hussein and Rajwa in June last year.


Israel says it will re-open crossing into Gaza as pressure builds to get more aid in

Updated 08 November 2024
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Israel says it will re-open crossing into Gaza as pressure builds to get more aid in

  • Aid agencies have warned of a gathering humanitarian crisis in the north of the enclave

JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said on Friday it was planning to reopen the Kissufim crossing into central Gaza to increase the flow of aid into the southern end of the Gaza Strip.
The move comes amid growing international pressure on Israel to get more aid into Gaza, where aid agencies have warned of a gathering humanitarian crisis in the north of the enclave, where Israeli troops have been conducting a major operation for more than a month.
The new crossing would be opened following engineering work over recent weeks by army engineers to build inspection points and paved roads, the army said.
Last month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wrote to Israeli officials demanding concrete measures to address the worsening situation in the Palestinian enclave.
The letter, which was posted to the Internet by a reporter from Axios, gave the Israeli government 30 days to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Among the demands included in the letter was for the opening of a fifth crossing into Gaza.


Sudan army govt accuses paramilitaries of causing 120 civilian deaths in 2 days

Updated 08 November 2024
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Sudan army govt accuses paramilitaries of causing 120 civilian deaths in 2 days

  • The Janjaweed militia (paramilitaries) committed a new massacre in the town of Hilaliya

PORT SUDAN: The Sudanese foreign ministry accused paramilitaries late Thursday of causing at least 120 civilian deaths over two days in Al-Jazira state, reportedly in attacks involving gunfire, food poisoning and lack of medical care.
“The Janjaweed militia (paramilitaries) committed a new massacre in the town of Hilaliya in Al-Jazira state over the past two days, resulting in 120 martyrs so far, killed either by gunfire or due to food poisoning and lack of medical care affecting hundreds of civilians,” the ministry of the army-backed government said in a statement obtained by AFP.


Yemen’s Houthi militants shoot down what they say was a US drone as American military investigates

Updated 08 November 2024
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Yemen’s Houthi militants shoot down what they say was a US drone as American military investigates

  • The US military acknowledged the videos circulating online showing what appeared to be a flaming aircraft dropping out of the sky
  • The Houthis claimed to have downed an American MQ-9 Reaper drone

DUBAI: Yemen’s Houthi militants shot down what they described as an American drone early Friday, potentially the latest downing of a US spy drone as the militants continue their attacks on the Red Sea corridor.
The US military acknowledged the videos circulating online showing what appeared to be a flaming aircraft dropping out of the sky and a field of burning debris in what those off-camera described as an area of Yemen’s Al-Jawf province. The military said it was investigating the incident, declining to elaborate further.
It wasn’t immediately clear what kind of aircraft was shot down in the low-quality night video. The Houthis, in a later statement, claimed to have downed an American MQ-9 Reaper drone.
The Houthis have surface-to-air missiles — such as the Iranian missile known as the 358 — capable of downing aircraft. Iran denies arming the militants, though Tehran-manufactured weaponry has been found on the battlefield and in sea shipments heading to Yemen for the Shiite Houthi militants despite a United Nations arms embargo.
The Houthis have been a key component of Iran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance” during the Mideast wars that includes Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Hamas and other militant groups.
Since Houthis seized the country’s north and its capital of Sanaa in 2014, the militants have shot down MQ-9 Reaper drones in Yemen in 2017, 2019, 2023 and 2024. The US military has declined to offer a total figure for the number of drones it has lost during that time.
Reapers, which cost around $30 million apiece, can fly at altitudes up to 50,000 feet (15,240 meters) and have an endurance of up to 24 hours before needing to land. The aircraft have been flown by both the US military and the CIA over Yemen for years.
The Houthis have targeted more than 90 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip started in October 2023. They seized one vessel and sank two in the campaign that has also killed four sailors. Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a US-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets, which have also included Western military vessels.
The militants maintain that they target ships linked to Israel, the US or the UK to force an end to Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, including some bound for Iran. The tempo of the Houthi sea attacks also has waxed and waned over the months.
In October, the US military unleashed B-2 stealth bombers to target underground bunkers used by the Houthis.