Premature, sick babies arrive in Egypt from Gaza after Al-Shifa evacuation

By Abeer Salman, Kareem Khadder, Jessie Yeung, Jonny Hallam, Asmaa Khalil and Niamh Kennedy, CNN

(CNN) — Twenty-eight premature babies arrived in Egypt in a convoy of ambulances from Gaza on Monday, according to an Egyptian government official, after the infants were evacuated from Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza.

Four mothers and six nurses accompanied the babies, who will be sent to two separate hospitals in Egypt for treatment, the government source said.

On Sunday, 31 babies were transferred from Al-Shifa to Emirati Hospital in the southern city of Rafah, in an operation mashaled by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PCRS) and several other organizations. A CNN journalist at Rafah crossing reported the babies were greeted by hordes of medical professionals waiting with incubators to take them into care.

Two of the babies stayed at the Emirati’s ICU unit – with one infant said to be in good health – and a third baby did not transfer to Egypt as his parents are currently in northern Gaza. The other 28 will be treated at the Al-Arish Hospital in Sinai and the New Capital Hospital in Cairo.

“We have been waiting for them during the past few days. We have made all the preparations to receive the newborn babies with all the medical equipment needed for that,” a doctor at Al-Arish, named Ahmad, told Egyptian state broadcaster Al Qahera Monday, adding some of the babies are in need of “more advanced medical measures.”

A mother of one of the premature babies transferred to a hospital in Egypt said it was the “best place on earth” for her daughter to be. She told Egyptian state run pool that after a “difficult birth” on September 28, her daughter had been placed in an incubator in Al-Shifa.

“On the seventh of October, I was supposed to go and see my daughter. She was reliant on artificial respiration. Then they asked us to leave our house, then they bombed our house. So I went to Al Shifa Hospital. It never occurred to us that the hospital would be targeted and that those children would have to go through what they went through,” Lubna El-Seik said Monday.

After Israel announced a “precise and targeted” operation in Al-Shifa and fighting began in the hospital complex, Al Seik said her daughter’s condition deteriorated. “She relied solely on artificial oxygen,” she said.

Citing doctors at the Rafah hospital, the World Health Organization said earlier the babies were fighting serious infections and 11 were in “critical condition,” due to a lack of medical supplies at Al-Shifa.

UNICEF, which worked with UN agencies and PCRS to carry out the evacuation, warned Sunday that the babies’ condition was “rapidly deteriorating.” It said the evacuation took place in “extremely dangerous conditions” and followed the “tragic death of several other babies, and total collapse of all medical services at Al-Shifa.”

Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza, has become a flashpoint in Israel’s war in the besieged enclave. The Israeli military alleges the facility is being used by Hamas as a shield for its operations and raided the hospital last Wednesday. Hamas and hospital officials have denied Israel’s claims.

For days, relentless bombardment near the hospital trapped thousands of staff, patients and civilians sheltering inside, prompting public outcry, fueled by the details of the plight of newborn babies fighting for their lives.

The WHO described Al-Shifa as a “death zone” with corridors “filled with medical and solid waste,” after a United Nations team visited the hospital for an hour on Saturday to assess the deteriorating humanitarian situation.

Palestinian authorities said several newborns have died due to power outages and a shortage of medical supplies; hospital staff described having to move babies by hand from incubators after running out of fuel and wrapping them in foil to keep them warm.

Under growing pressure to provide evidence for its claim that Hamas is using Al-Shifa for military purposes, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Sunday released CCTV videos and still images it says show Hamas fighters bringing hostages into Al-Shifa on October 7, when Hamas launched its attack on southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and taking some 240 people into Gaza as hostages.

IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari presented two short videos, along with several still images, which he said show Hamas fighters moving the hostages – one Nepali, one Thai – through the hospital. CNN cannot independently verify the content of the videos and the stills.

Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati, the head of the hospital’s burns unit, accused Israeli forces of pushing around staff, questioning them about Hamas and restricting staff movements after the raid last week.

“The common question (staff keep being asked): Do you know anything about the Hamas groups? Do you know anything about the tunnels within the hospital?” the doctor said.

Egyptian health workers were photographed on Monday standing beside ambulances and incubators, waiting for the babies to arrive at the Rafah border, which has been used to bring in limited aid and evacuate foreign nationals.

It was hoped that the parents of the newborns would be able to travel to safety with their children, but the WHO said very few of the infants were accompanied by family members.

Gazan officials had “limited information” and were not able to find close family members, the WHO said.

One father, Ali Sbeiti, was reunited with his young son Anas, who was born three days before the war began.

“Thank God. We now feel that our son is safe after not seeing him for more than two weeks. We didn’t know whether he was dead or alive, especially when communications were disconnected with the doctors,” Sbeiti told CNN.

The intense fighting between Israel and Hamas, and a communications blackout across the enclave due to a lack of fuel, has complicated aid delivery efforts and made it more difficult for Palestinians to reach relief services.

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Sunday further missions were being planned to evacuate the remaining patients and staff from Al-Shifa, “pending guarantees of safe passage by parties to the conflict.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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CNN’s Martin Goillandeau, Sharon Braithwaite, Eleni Giokos, Sophie Tanno, Hamdi Alkhshali, Oren Liebermann and Christian Edwards contributed reporting.