Three babies freeze to death in Gaza refugee camp amid Israeli blockade

Father of three-week-old victim Sila Mahmoud al-Faseeh says family slept on cold sand in tent exposed to bitter winds.

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.

“This is a screaming example of the consequences of this unfair war and its impact on the people of the Gaza Strip,” said al-Farra.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.