At least eight children who were evacuated from Gaza as premature babies in the early weeks of the war have returned from Egypt and been reunited with their families.
The toddlers were among more than 30 severely ill newborns in incubators, evacuated from Gaza's Shifa Hospital in November 2023 during heavy fighting. The hospital complex had earlier been occupied by Israeli forces, who claimed it was being used by Hamas.
Sundus al-Kurd, a mother anxiously waiting for her daughter's return, expressed her conflicting emotions of fear and joy, worried about being accepted after such a long separation. Clutching a pink-embroidered dress for Bisan at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, she recounted her desperate attempts to take her newborn out of Shifa hospital before being told that Bisan could not be moved from her incubator.
Nearly a year passed before Sundus learned an update about her daughter. I lived between despair and hope that my daughter might still be alive, she reflected. Eventually, Sundus was informed that her daughter was alive and well in an Egyptian field hospital, identified by a pink bracelet given to her at birth.
Sundus, who had suffered the loss of another child and multiple family members, described the news of her daughter's survival as like a dream. Although their reunion marks a small triumph in the face of adversity due to the ceasefire, Gaza remains in a precarious state, divided and facing uncertain prospects amid ongoing political turmoil.
