War between Israel and Hamas: grief for Kiwi family after premature Palestinian baby Sabreen Jouda dies

The Kiwi family of a premature Palestinian baby cut from her mother’s womb shortly after the woman was killed in an Israeli airstrike are reeling after the child lost her fight for life.

“(She) could have grown into a great person and achieved many things, but all that is gone,” Mohammed Gouda told 1News as he called on Kiwis to remember the humanity of innocent lives lost in Israel’s conflict and Hamas.

Sabreen Jouda died Thursday in a hospital in Gaza after her health deteriorated and medical teams failed to save the newborn, who was delivered by emergency caesarean section last Saturday at 30 weeks’ gestation, her uncle Rami al-Sheikh told AP .

Her parents Shukri and Sabreen Joudeh, and four-year-old sister, were all killed when their home in the southern Gaza city of Rafah was hit by the airstrike.

Her Kiwi family could not be reached 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 going to Gaza because “as a doctor I should be there.” .

He has previously spoken of the loss of more than 100 family members in the conflict.

Gouda’s son Mohammed told 1News it was difficult to comprehend what happened in his early childhood in the place he called home.

“They have dreams and hopes just like us, but we have all this. We can achieve it, but they cannot. The most they can dream of is eating and working… we’re not really making it, we’re just living as much as we can.”

Everyone involved in the conflict needed to remember the humanity that was lost, he told 1News.

“Try to see the story from all points of view, even if you have a different perspective, think of the innocent lives that are lost.”

Sabreen, named after her mother and nursed in a hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit until her death, was buried next to her father on Thursday, Al-Sheikh, her uncle, told AP.

“We were crazy attached to this baby. God had taken something from us, but also given us something in return.

“But (now) he’s taken them all. My brother’s family has been completely wiped out.”

More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war between Israel and Hamas, according to local health officials, who say about two-thirds of the dead are women and children.

Health officials do not distinguish between combatants and civilians in their count, AP reported.

Israel declared war on Hamas and unleashed a devastating air and ground offensive in Gaza in response to the militants’ attack on southern Israel on October 7. The militants killed about 1,200 people in Israel and took another 250 hostage.

More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have sought refuge in Rafah, where Israel has carried out almost daily raids in preparation for a possible offensive on the city, AP reported today.