On one occasion, Israeli tanks surrounded the building they were staying in and opened fire. Alaa, her sons and about 25 other people who were inside escaped through an opening created when a shell struck the building earlier in the war.\u00a0<\/strong>She describes their escape as \u201cmiraculous\u201d.<\/p>\n But it was the middle of winter and Alaa was eight months pregnant. She walked eastward for four hours in the cold with her children to escape the tanks. At the time, her husband was elsewhere with his elderly mother, who has difficulty walking. Alaa, her sons and the people from the building took detours to reach the Old City, where they sheltered in a shop near a mosque until it was safe to return.<\/p>\n Alaa desperately hoped the war would end before she was due to give birth. \u201cI never imagined going into labour during the war,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n She was at her sister-in-law\u2019s house when she first started to feel labour pains. \u201cI tried to lie to myself,\u201d she says, by insisting she wasn\u2019t about to give birth. But the pain grew worse.<\/p>\n It was after 10pm on a wet, cold January night, and Alaa could hear the sounds of Israeli bombs landing nearby.<\/p>\n She called her mother and sister who were staying nearby while her husband went to look for a car to take her to the hospital. Alaa waited on the street. Her labour progressed quickly, but due to the lack of fuel and the late hour, Abdullah couldn\u2019t find a car, and the communication networks were too weak to call for an ambulance.<\/p>\n Alaa stood on the side of the street, screaming for help. She remembers praying and thinking: \u201cPlease, God, not now. I want to be in the hospital.\u201d She was terrified for her baby\u2019s life.<\/p>\n But by the time her husband returned, she was already giving birth. Her mother and sister also arrived, running to her in shock. Abdullah caught his daughter\u2019s head in his hands and shouted out for scissors to cut the umbilical cord, which her cousin who arrived with Alaa\u2019s brother brought out from a medical kit.<\/p>\n Desperate to find medical care for his wife and newborn daughter, Abdullah eventually managed to find a car to take them to a maternity hospital 5.5km (3.4 miles) away. Alaa climbed in with her baby and her mother while her husband and brother ran ahead of them.<\/p>\n But the car stopped after just a few meters. It had run out of fuel. \u201cThe street around me was completely dark. There was no one in sight,\u201d Alaa recalls.<\/p>\n \u201cMy cousin carried the baby girl, wrapping her in his coat against the cold, and walked quickly in front of us, fearing for her life. He guided us with the flashlight on his mobile phone, saying, \u2018Turn right, then left\u2019 to guide us.\u201d<\/p>\n Alaa was bleeding. Her mother and sister walked alongside her, crying.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mother walked in the middle of the street, screaming, \u2018Please, is there anyone? Is there any car to take us? Please, we have a newborn baby girl and her mother just gave birth.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut there was no answer.\u201d<\/p>\n They walked for about an hour before they found a minibus to take them the short remaining distance to the hospital.<\/p>\n \u201cWe got into the car, crying with both joy and fear,\u201d Alaa says.<\/p>\n At the door to the hospital, a doctor was waiting, informed by Alaa\u2019s husband and his brother who had arrived before them.<\/p>\n \u201cThe doctor took me in her arms and immediately took me to the maternity ward,\u201d Alaa recalls.<\/p>\n When she woke the next morning and the doctors told her her daughter was doing well, Alaa says her \u201chappiness was indescribable\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe God was with me,\u201d Alaa reflects.<\/p>\n Amid the joy of learning that her daughter had survived the harrowing birth, Alaa recalls a small moment when a cousin offered her a cup of fresh orange juice squeezed from an orange she had picked from some nearby land and kept hidden.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was the first and last time I had fresh juice during the war,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Then there was the small box of halwa her husband had put in her birth bag.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery day before I gave birth, I checked the bag to make sure it was still there,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n That day she took a deep breath before savouring the first spoonful. \u201cI had forgotten what it tasted like during the war,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Six months have passed since then, and Nimah is healthy. Alaa continues to breastfeed due to the lack of baby formula and food, even as she herself is unable to eat properly, given the food shortages.<\/p>\n Nimah has begun to laugh and coo, and everyone in the house in Sheikh Radwan adores her. But her mother is sad that she was born and is growing up in such difficult circumstances.<\/p>\n Alaa\u2019s family has felt the full force of this war. Her children must survive on a quarter of a loaf of bread each day, and the family mourns Alaa\u2019s 26-year-old brother, also named Alaa, whose body was found near their bombed-out house at the end of December.<\/p>\n \u201cMy child was born from the heart of death,\u201d Alaa says. \u201cBut since that day, hope has not left my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n On a cold night, Alaa gave birth on a dark road. Afterwards, she and her baby had to find a way to get to the hospital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":22086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[990,984,16,200,982,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-news","category-report","category-democracy-human-rights","category-international","category-headline"],"views":40,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22075"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22087,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22075\/revisions\/22087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u2018Please, is there anyone?\u2019<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/nimah.jpg\")
A healthy baby and a spoon of halwa<\/h2>\n
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/h6>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"