Shayma al-Sheikh Qanan, 23, was killed when an Israeli tank shell hit her home in the Gaza Strip. Qanan was eight months pregnant, and doctors were able to conduct an emergency Caesarean section to save her child.
Qanan lived in Deir al-Balah and died on the way to the hospital. She had been trapped in rubble for an hour before being reached by paramedics. After the delivery, the newborn was moved to another hospital in Khan Yunis, and her health is currently being monitored in the maternal ward. The hospital's head doctor, Abdel Karim al-Bawab, told AFP that the baby, now four days old, will need to stay at the hospital for another three weeks, at the least.
Mirfat Qanan, Shayma Qanan's mother, found the occasion bittersweet. "God has protected this child for me. My daughter Shayma is dead, but I now have a new daughter," she told AFP. "She'll call me 'mummy' just like her mother did."
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