(NEW YORK) — When Sundus al Kurd and her daughter Bissan were separated at the start of the Israel-Hamas war in 2023, she wasn’t sure she’d see her again. Bissan was only a few days old when her mother allowed her to be medically evacuated from the Gaza strip to Egypt.
The premature baby’s life was saved, along with others, by the World Health Organization and Palestinian Red Crescent during the height of the conflict, but now the two have been reunited.
“After all this time, my daughter is finally back in my arms!” al Kurd, a young Palestinian mother, exclaims as she held her child for the first time in over two years.
“Every day, I lived with fear — fear that I might never hold her again, fear that she might forget me. But the moment I held her in my arms again, it felt like she had never been away. That moment was complete joy!” the 27-year-old al Kurd told ABC News.
Bissan, who has spent the last 2 1/2 years in Egypt, had been one of 33 premature babies trapped inside the Al Shifa hospital as the Israeli military laid siege to it in November 2023.
“Being reunited with my daughter is something I cannot fully describe. It is a mix of relief, love, and something deeper — like life returning to me after being paused for years,” al Kurd said.
“The first night we spent together was very emotional. I couldn’t sleep. I kept watching her, holding her, making sure she was really there beside me. I was afraid to close my eyes, as if it was all a dream that might disappear,” she said.
Bissan’s life had been in imminent danger in November 2023, doctors said. The neonatal unit she was in at Al Shifa hospital was running out of fuel and oxygen, cut off by the Israeli army, which had encircled the hospital, saying that Hamas had a hidden command center in its precincts, something both Hamas medical teams there strongly denied.
“They were meant to die without incubators, without oxygen, without water, but they survived every single stage of this terrible reality,” Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati, the former head of plastic surgery at Al Shifa Hospital, told ABC News.
Mokhallalati was one of the few doctors who remained at Al Shifa throughout the Israeli siege.
“Most of the doctors were surgeons, not even pediatricians, but we felt we had to do our best to keep these kids alive,” he said. “We felt these kids were like our own babies. Every morning, we would go just to make sure they were still alive.”
He said that the extreme danger of the situation forced some parents to abandon their babies.
“There were no parents because the hospital was bombed and people were forced to flee to save their other children,” Mokhallalati said. “In the calculus of survival, mothers fled with the children who could run and left behind those who could not, making an impossible choice.”
The premature babies were left fighting for their lives for days, with one doctor and six nurses caring for them in ever-worsening conditions, he said.
“We did not know their names, we did not know their parents. They had no one to take care of them. They were wearing only small wristbands, usually with their mothers’ names, and that was the only thing we knew about them,” Mokhallalati said.
Not all the babies survived those difficult days. Five died as the team struggled to keep them fed and warm, but Mokhallalati was amazed that so many of the babies made it.
“They were meant to die at many stages but they survived every single challenge,” adding, “They were the only feeling of hope we had in all of this chaos and destruction.”
On Nov. 19, 2023, they were rescued after the WHO and the Palestinian Red Crescent were given access to the hospital. They carried the precious cargo through a war zone to a hospital in Rafah, in southern Gaza, before taking them across the border to Egypt, officials said.
“Twenty-eight were evacuated to Egypt, but seven more died there due to the difficult conditions, leaving 21 survivors. Of those, 11 have now returned on March 30, while four others came back earlier when Rafah crossing opened, and six remain in Egypt with their families,” Dr. Ahmed Al-Farra, the head of pediatrics and neonatal care at Nasser Hospital in Gaza, told ABC News.
Among those returning was 2-year-old Azzhar Kafarna. Her mother, Heba Saleh, described the ordeal of their separation to ABC News.
“For two and a half years, I felt something missing all the time,” she said.
“I missed everything — her first smile, her first steps, even the little things that any mother waits for. I used to imagine her … how she looks now, how her voice sounds, and if she would recognize me when we finally meet,” Saleh said.
She was nervous about their reunion, “When I saw her again, I didn’t know what to feel. I just hugged her tightly. It felt like I was holding all the days we lost in that one moment.”
Al-Farra examined all the toddlers when they returned to Gaza this week.
“All of the children are in generally good condition, with normal weight and growth, but many are facing complications linked to extreme prematurity,” he said.
Al-Farra says many of them, “have vision problems and need glasses because their eye nerves were not fully developed,” like Bissan, who wears a bright red pair of spectacles.
However, not all of them have come back to happy reunions.
“I don’t think all of these children have parents to return to. Some of their families were likely killed during the war,” Al-Farra said.
“In one case, there is real confusion over the child’s identity, with more than one person claiming the baby. We are still trying to identify the family, but without access to DNA testing in Gaza, we cannot confirm who the child belongs to,” he said.
Fear returning to Gaza
Both the mothers ABC News spoke with were nervous about their children returning to Gaza.
“As a mother, I feel everything at once. I’m happy she’s finally with me … but at the same time, I feel guilty, even though I had no choice. I keep thinking about all the moments I wasn’t there for.” Saled said.
“And of course, I’m worried about raising her in Gaza. I want her to feel safe, to live a normal life, but the situation here is not easy,” Saled said.
That sentiment was echoed by al Kurd.
“I am also worried. My daughter has never heard the sound of bombing before. I am afraid of how she might react if she experiences it here in Gaza. This fear is always in my heart.”
“I wish for my daughter to have a better future, a life that is safer and more stable than the one we are living now,” al Kurd said.
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