At least four infants have died of hypothermia in recent weeks Gaza Stripwhere hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, displaced after nearly 15 months of war, are crammed into tents on the rainy, windswept coast as winter takes hold.
Jomaa al-Batran, 20 days old, was found with his “head ice cold” when his parents woke up on Sunday, his father Yehia said. The baby’s twin brother, Ali, was transferred to the intensive care unit at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
Their father said the twins were born a month prematurely and spent only one day in the hospital’s nursery like other health centers in Gaza is overwhelmed and only works partially.
Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
He said doctors told their mother to keep the newborns warm, but that was impossible because they lived in a tent and temperatures regularly fell below 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) at night. Death from hypothermia can occur at temperatures between 30 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
“There are eight of us and we only have four blankets,” al-Batran said, cradling his son’s pale body. He described dewdrops seeping through the tent canvas overnight. “Look at its color because of the cold. See how frozen he is?”
Children, some barefoot, stood outside and watched him mourn. The infant, wrapped in a shroud, was placed at the feet of an Imam and was barely larger than his shoes. After the prayer, the Imam took off his ankle-length cloak and wrapped it around the father.
“I’m getting warm, my brother,” he said.
Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
Dr. Fidda Al-Nadi, a doctor at Nasser Hospital, told CBS News that they admit one or two cases of hypothermia every day. The youngest, Al-Nadi said, are most at risk.
“Due to the stress we live in, many children are born prematurely, which increases the susceptibility to hypothermia,” Al-Nadi said.
Mahmoud al-Faseeh buried his daughter Sila last week – she died of hypothermia at just three weeks old.
“I went to wake her up to breastfeed and she was cold and blue, bleeding from her nose,” he told the Associated Press. “Her heart stopped because of the intensity of the cold.”
Israel launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip after declaring war on Hamas following deadly attacks by Hamas militants on October 7, 2023, which killed about 1,200 people.
According to the Gaza Strip’s Ministry of Health, which does not differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count, Israel’s bombing and ground invasion of Gaza has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children.
The offensive has caused widespread destruction and about 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people displaced, often multiple times.
Aid agencies have struggled to deliver food and supplies and report shortages of blankets, warm clothing and firewood.
Elsewhere on Sunday, an Israeli attack on the upper floor of a hospital in Gaza City killed at least seven people and wounded several others, according to Civil Defense, a first responder close to the Hamas-led government. The Israeli military said it attacked a Hamas control center inside the building, which it said was no longer serving as a hospital.
And an attack near Nuseirat in central Gaza left eight people dead and more than 15 injured, according to officials at Al-Awda Hospital.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said militants fired five projectiles from the northern Gaza Strip into Israel for the second time in two days, adding that two of them were intercepted and the rest likely struck in open areas. Rockets from the northern Gaza Strip had been rare in recent months as the Israeli military stepped up operations there.
contributed to this report.
