From Global News.

They’ve never known their parents, and they’ve never known Gaza, born prematurely two years ago and evacuated to Egypt as Israeli forces drew dangerously close to their neonatal care unit.

That changed on Monday, when the 11 children, now toddlers, reunited with their families in Gaza as part of a United Nations-organized mission that brought tears of joy and celebration, as well as a close to one of the war’s most painful chapters.

The infants were among 29 preterm babies who were evacuated from the neonatal intensive care unit at Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital in November 2023, when Israeli forces raided the hospital over accusations that Hamas had used it for military purposes.

With fighting raging and the border to Egypt closed, the babies were permitted to be escorted only by medics. Their parents were not allowed to go with them.

"I couldn’t touch her, I couldn’t hold my daughter during the two and a half years," one of the children’s mothers, Sundus Al-Kurd, said as she embraced her daughter, Bissan, as she and others reunited with their children on Monday.

Seven of the 29 infants evacuated died while in Egypt, doctors said. Beyond the 11 who returned to Gaza, the remaining children were with family outside of the Palestinian territory, the doctors said.

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