GAZA STRIP — Eleven toddlers who had been evacuated as premature newborns from Shifa Hospital's neonatal intensive care unit returned to Gaza via the Rafah crossing on Monday. The children, now over two years old, were among 31 premature babies evacuated from the hospital in November 2023.

The evacuated infants had been premature newborns in the neonatal intensive care unit at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City during the first week of the war. The Red Crescent and the World Health Organization evacuated the neonatal intensive care unit at Shifa Hospital in November 2023 when Israel invaded northern Gaza and besieged the complex.

Shifa Hospital experienced blackouts in the first month of the war after Israeli troops besieged and stormed the hospital complex. Thirty-one premature babies survived the first month of the war at Shifa Hospital and were evacuated from the hospital.

Parents cradled the toddlers in their arms at Nasser Hospital as crowds gathered around them. Samer Lulu hoisted his daughter Kinda into his arms at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on Monday, more than two years after her evacuation from Shifa Hospital's neonatal intensive care unit.

"Our feelings are mixed with pain because of the reality we live in," Samer Lulu said outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. "We hope that the future of our children will not be filled with the tragedy or suffering they faced at the beginning of their lives."

Sundus Al-Kurd was reunited with her daughter Bissan on Monday; Bissan is now two and a half years old. Two-year-old Ibrahim Bader met his father and grandmother but not his mother when he returned to Gaza.

Ibrahim Bader's mother died from illness in December 2023 after most hospitals in Gaza had gone offline or scaled back services, Jabr Bader said. Some parents said they still do not know what happened to their newborns after they were evacuated.

The toddlers are among a larger group of Palestinians returning to Gaza from Egypt through the partially reopened Rafah crossing. An Israeli official said that the 11 toddlers and seven caregivers were permitted to return with the help of UNICEF. "The reunions were filled with many messages — sadness, and the joy of being reunited with their loved ones," Ahmed al-Farra, a doctor at Nasser Hospital's pediatrics department, said.

More than 72,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's offensive, according to local health authorities. The offensive has displaced the majority of Gaza's population, often multiple times.