Gaza City, Gaza Strip – Mohammed Lubbad found himself being pulled out of the rubble of his home. An Israeli strike had hit his family’s house, just a few days after the genocidal war on Gaza began. It was October 13, 2023 – the day his trauma began, and the day his search for a child who he has never met, and cannot be sure was ever born, began.
Mohammed was transferred from his now-destroyed home in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya to the Indonesian Hospital for treatment. A trickle of information started to reach him. One of his two daughters had survived, the other – five-year-old Rana – had died, along with his mother, his brother, his brother’s wife, and their child.
But his wife Amal, eight months pregnant, had disappeared. First, Mohammed was told by hospital staff that Amal had been taken to Kamal Adwan Hospital, where a Caesarean section had been performed, leading to the delivery of a healthy baby boy, his son. But then came the news – amid the chaos of a war that was devastating Gaza and already killing hundreds at the time – that Amal had been transferred to al-Shifa Hospital due to her condition, and had died from head trauma and abdominal wounds on October 22.
Mohammed mourned his wife, as he had mourned his daughter Rana and other lost loved ones. But his attention soon turned to the mystery of his son. His brother-in-law had been told the baby might be among a group of premature infants who had been at al-Shifa Hospital.
Al Jazeera reached out to members of the other family – who are not being named for privacy reasons – but they did not wish to be interviewed for this article. But amid escalating war conditions and the Israeli siege of al-Shifa Medical Complex in November 2023, access became extremely dangerous, and accurate medical documentation scarce. Meanwhile, global attention focused on the premature infants trapped inside the hospital, with fear growing that a power cut brought on by the Israeli siege would lead to staff being forced to turn life-saving equipment off.
In a statement to Al Jazeera, Gaza’s police investigations department confirmed the dispute, and said that it had arisen after two women in similar circumstances gave birth prematurely. Both babies initially survived and were placed with other premature babies in neonatal intensive care units, but amid Israel’s attack and the accompanying power outage, several of the babies died. Testimonies from hospital staff indicate that one of the babies born to the two dead mothers was among the babies who didn’t survive, leaving one baby at the centre of the dispute.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
