A 20-day-old baby has died in Gaza from a severe cold, the fifth death from hypothermia in six days in the Palestinian enclave besieged by Israel.
Jumaa al-Batran died on Sunday while his twin brother, Ali, remains in intensive care at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, the Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement.
Jumaa’s father, Yahya al-Batran, said his son was found with his head “cold as ice” when he woke up on Sunday.
He said the twins were born a month premature and spent only a day in the nursery at Deir el-Balah hospital, which, like other health centers in Gaza, was overwhelmed and not only partially works due to incessant Israeli bombing.
He said doctors told 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.
“We are eight people and we only have four blankets,” al-Batran said as he cradled his son’s pale body. He described drops of dew seeping through the tent fabric during the night.
“Look at its color from the cold. Do you see how frozen it is? said al-Batran, whose family sought shelter in a tattered tent in the central Gaza town of Deir el-Balah.
“There is no electricity. The water is cold and there is no gas, no heating, no food. … My children are dying before my eyes and no one cares. Jumaa is dead and I fear his brother Ali will follow him.
Children, some barefoot, stood outside watching Yahya cry. The child wrapped in a shroud was placed at the feet of an imam, barely bigger than his shoes. After the prayer, the imam took off his coat down to his ankles and wrapped it around the father.
Tel Aviv Tribune’s Hind Khoudary said the area where the al-Batran family was sheltering was “very close to the sea and very windy.”
“There are no tarpaulins or tents, and Jumaa’s father has not been able to give his children basic necessities,” she said. “Not only are Palestinian babies and children dying from air attacks and artillery, but also from malnutrition and hypothermia. »
Israeli forces have displaced almost all of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, forcing tens of thousands of them to huddle in unsuitable tents along Gaza’s rainy, windswept southern coast. Gaza.
Three of the five Palestinian babies who died from exposure in less than a week lived in the al-Mawasi “humanitarian zone.”
Marwan al-Hamas, head of field hospitals in Gaza, confirmed Jumaa’s death, saying it brings to five the number of children “died due to intense cold” in recent days.
Ahmed Alfarra, a doctor at Al Tahreer Maternity Hospital in Khan Younis, said he sees an average of five to six cases of hypothermia in babies every day.
“I visited the tents where these infants live and saw the condition they were in. It’s miserable,” Alfaraa told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Since the start of the war in October last year, Gaza residents have suffered severe shortages of electricity, drinking water, food and medical services as they have been forced from their homes and displaced – mostly several times.
The Israeli genocide in Gaza killed at least 45,484 Palestinians and injured 108,090. At least 1,139 people were killed in Israel during attacks carried out by Hamas on October 7, 2023, and more than 200 were captured.