A baby evacuated from Al-Shifa Hospital reunites with parents — but in Rafah, they face fresh peril

CAIRO, Egypt — Bundled up in layers of blankets at a tent encampment in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, baby Anas Stateh cries out in pain. For weeks, the five-month-old has suffered from a hernia that requires urgent surgery, but the war has made it impossible for his parents to get him the help he needs.

“The boy is weak,” his father, Jalal Stateh, told NBC News’ crew in Rafah, where more than 1 million people have taken refuge last week amid Israel’s offensive in the enclave. Baby Anas, he said, gets “no sleep, day or night.”

“I am watching him … losing him,” Jalal Stateh added.

Anas has already survived plenty. In November, he was one of 31 babies evacuated from Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza as part of a high-stakes mission led by the World Health Organization.

Once considered the backbone of Gaza’s health care system, the complexwas raided by the Israel Defense Forces, with the IDF allegingthe hospital was being used as a command center for Hamas — an allegation supported by U.S. intelligence, according to a U.S. official.In November, Israel released footage it said showed hostages being forced onto the premises of Al-Shifa Hospital, as well as video purported to show a tunnel under the facility.

Before evacuating the complex, and already cut off from food, water and fuel for electricity, doctors were forced to move the babies from their incubators to a temperature-controlled operating room.

Dr. Ahmed El Mokhallallati, the director of Al-Shifa’s burns unit, recalled how he risked his life climbing up to the hospital’s rooftop, which he said was surrounded by snipers, to a get strong enough signal to send photos of the babies out to the world, in hopes that the international community might intervene. In the