Father of
three-week-old victim Sila Mahmoud al-Faseeh says family slept on cold sand in
tent exposed to bitter winds.
Mahmoud al-Faseeh carries the body of his daughter, three-week-old Sila,
who froze to death in the family tent in the al-Mawasi area outside the
town of Khan Younis, December 25, 2024 [Hani Alshaer/Anadolu]
Three
Palestinian babies have died of hypothermia at the al-Mawasi refugee camp in
southern Gaza in recent days, as temperatures plummet and Israel’s blockade on
food, water, and essential winter supplies continues.
Ahmed al-Farra,
director of the children’s ward at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, confirmed
the death of three-week-old Sila Mahmoud al-Faseeh on Wednesday, adding that
two other babies, aged three days and one month, had been brought to the
hospital over the previous 48 hours after dying of hypothermia.
“She was in good
health and she was born naturally, but because of the severe cold in the tents
there was a significant decrease in temperature which made her bodily system
stop working and led to her death,” said al-Farra, referring to Sila’s death in
an interview with Al Jazeera.
Mahmoud
al-Faseeh, father of baby Sila, said the family had been living in “bad
conditions” in their tent at al-Mawasi, an area of dunes and farmland on Gaza’s
Mediterranean coast, close to the southern town of Khan Younis.
Al-Mawasi was
designated as a “safe zone”, but was attacked repeatedly over the last 14
months of the Israeli offensive.
“We sleep on the
sand and we don’t have enough blankets and we feel the cold inside our tent,”
he told Al Jazeera. “Only God knows our conditions. Our situation is very
difficult.”
The family’s
tent was not sealed from the wind and the ground was cold, with temperatures on
Tuesday night dropping to 9 degrees Celsius (48 degrees Fahrenheit).
The baby had
woken up crying three times overnight. In the morning, her parents found her
unresponsive, her body stiff, “like wood”, said al-Faseeh in another interview
with The Associated Press news agency.
He rushed the
baby to Nasser Hospital, but it was already too late to revive her.
Dr Munir
al-Bursh, the director general of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, said baby
Sila “froze to death from the extreme cold”, underlining that the site had been
declared a “temporary safe humanitarian zone for displaced persons” by the
Israeli military.
Israel’s
bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza has killed over 45,000 Palestinians,
more than half of them women and children.
The offensive
has caused widespread destruction and displaced some 90 percent of the Strip’s
2.3 million residents, often multiple times.
Hundreds of
thousands are packed into tent camps along the coast as the cold, wet winter
sets in. Aid groups have struggled to deliver food and supplies and say there
are shortages of blankets, warm clothing and firewood.
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