In Gaza, a 20-day-old baby has passed away due to an unusually low body temperature, as his family, uprooted by Israel’s invasion, fights to stay warm in a tent during the bitterly cold winter.
In Gaza, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have been uprooted by over 15 months of war are huddled in tents along the rainy, windswept coast as winter approaches, and a fourth baby has died of cold.
According to his father Yehia, Jomaa al-Batran, who was 20 days old, was discovered with his skull as “cold as ice” early on Sunday.
Ali, the infant’s twin brother, was transferred to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital’s intensive care unit.
According to their father, they were born one month early and were only in the hospital’s nursery for a day. The hospital, like other health centers in Gaza, is overcrowded and only partially operational.
He claimed that because they live in a tent and nighttime lows frequently fall below 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit), the doctors’ advice to their mother to keep the newborns warm was not feasible.
As he held his son’s pale body, al-Batran remarked, “We have four blankets, and we are eight people.”
Overnight, he said, beads of dew began to leak through the tent. “Observe his color due to the cold.” Can you see how immobile he is?
Children watched him grieve outside, some of them barefoot.
For prayers, the veiled baby was placed at an imam’s feet. The imam then placed his coat around the father after removing it to his ankles.
“My brother, feel warm,” he remarked.
Local health experts say the cold has killed at least three additional babies in recent weeks.
