Gaza war separates parents from their new born baby

RAFAH/JABALIA, Gaza Strip: Born two months premature as war raged in Gaza, Palestinian baby Yehia Hamuda was evacuated to southern Gaza after Israeli forces raided the hospital where he was being cared for in the north.

Stuck in the north, his parents have not seen him since then.

His mother Sondos and father Zakaria scrolled through photographs of Yehia, now five-months-old, on a mobile phone at their home in Jabalia in northern Gaza, severed from the south by Israeli military checkpoints. Sondos said it was too dangerous to make the 30-km (20-mile) journey from Jabalia to Rafah.

“There are tanks and bulldozers. My husband and I cannot go,” she said. “They would kill us. I am afraid my son would end up living alone.”

Yehia was born on Nov. 27, seven weeks into the conflict. “After three months, I saw his photo on the mobile phone. I want to hold him. I want to breastfeed him. Every day, my chest hurts. I cannot deal with this,” she said.

Yehia is being cared for by the nurses and medical staff of the al-Emirati hospital in Rafah.

Amal Abu Khatla, a nurse at the hospital, said Yehia’s condition had been difficult when he first arrived from northern Gaza.

In Jabalia, Yehia’s father Zakaria yearns to be reunited with him. “My only wish in life is to hold my son and for God to reunite us with our son,” he said.