At least four children have died from hypothermia in recent weeks Gaza StripHundreds of thousands of Palestinians, displaced by the war that has been going on for nearly 15 months, live in tents along the rainy and windy coast with the advent of winter.
His father, Yahya, said that Jumah Al-Batran (20 days old) was found with his head “cold as ice” when his parents woke up on Sunday. The child’s twin brother, Ali, was transferred to the intensive care department at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
Their father said the twins were born one month premature and spent just one day in the hospital’s incubator Similar to other health centers in Gaza I’m overwhelmed and it only works partially.
Abdel Karim Hanna/AP
He said paramedics asked their mother to keep the newborns warm, but that was impossible because they live in a tent and temperatures regularly drop below 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) at night. Deaths from hypothermia can occur at temperatures between 30 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
“We are eight people, and we only have four blankets,” Al-Batran said, hugging his son’s pale body. He described the dew drops seeping through the tent cover throughout the night. “Look at its color because of the cold. Do you see how frozen it is?”
Children, some barefoot, stood outside and watched him cry. The shrouded infant was placed at the imam’s feet, barely larger than his shoes. After praying, the imam took off his ankle-length coat and wrapped it around the father.
“I feel warm, brother,” he said.
Abdel Karim Hanna/AP
Dr. Fadda Al-Nadi, a doctor at Nasser Hospital, told CBS News that they receive one or two cases of hypothermia every day. The club said the youngest are the most vulnerable.
The club said: “In light of the pressure we are experiencing, many children are born prematurely, and this exposes them more to hypothermia.”
Mahmoud Al-Fasih buried his daughter Sila last week, as she died of hypothermia when she was only 3 weeks old.
“I went to wake her up to breastfeed and she was frozen and blue, and she was bleeding from her nose,” he told the Associated Press. “Her heart stopped from the cold.”
Israel launched an attack on the Gaza Strip after declaring war on Hamas following the deadly attacks launched by the movement’s militants on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,200 people.
The Israeli bombing and ground invasion of Gaza led to the deaths of more than 45,000 Palestinians, more than half of whom were women and children, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its statistics.
Attack It caused widespread destruction It caused the displacement of about 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people, often several times.
Aid groups are struggling to deliver food and supplies and say there are shortages of blankets, warm clothes and firewood.
Elsewhere, an Israeli raid on the top floor of a hospital in Gaza City on Sunday killed at least seven people and wounded several others, according to Civil Defense, the Hamas-run government’s first responders. The Israeli army said it struck a Hamas observation post inside the building, which it said was no longer used as a hospital.
A raid near Nuseirat in central Gaza resulted in the killing of eight people and the injury of more than 15 others, according to officials at Al Awda Hospital.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said that militants fired five shells from northern Gaza into Israel, the second time in two days, adding that two were intercepted and the rest likely landed in open areas. Rocket launches from northern Gaza have been rare in recent months as the Israeli army intensifies its operations there.
Holly Williams contributed to this report.
