A seventh Palestinian baby has frozen to death as more than a million displaced Gazans struggle to survive in freezing winter conditions, with more thunderstorms forecast to batter the besieged territory.
Most families in Gaza, displaced multiple times over the past year by the Israeli assault on the territory, are living in makeshift shelters that provide little protection against the cold, with humanitarian aid failing to meet even the most basic needs.
Jumaa al-Batran, one month old, died of hypothermia in a tent in Deir al-Balah on Monday, just a day after her twin brother Ali suffered the same fate, the British news agency Reuters reported.
Ali died at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza, with doctors quoted by the Palestinian news agency Wafa attributing the death to freezing temperatures.
The twins are the sixth and seventh Palestinian babies to die of severe cold in Gaza within a week. Their father told Reuters he found Jumaa’s lifeless body “frozen like ice”.
The Palestinian Meteorological Department has forecast more rainfall and thunderstorms across Gaza on New Year’s Eve, and temperatures are expected to remain cold to very cold.
Humanitarian agencies estimate that 1.6 million Gazans are living in makeshift shelters, with half a million in flood-prone areas. Most children eat only one meal a day, further reducing their ability to withstand the cold.
The war has displaced over two-thirds of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, with many families forced to flee repeatedly as Israeli forces have expanded their operations in the north.
The UN relief agency for the Palestinians, Unrwa, said on Sunday that aid is nowhere near enough and a ceasefire is desperately needed to deliver food as a famine looms.
Palestinians receive donated food at a distribution centre in Deir al-Balah, Gaza (AP)
In addition to the cold, heavy rainfall in recent days flooded many camps, leaving families scrambling to repair their damaged shelters or move to areas that offer even less protection.
“The water seeped inside and onto the mattresses and my children’s clothes. Everything is soaked—the blankets, the pillows, everything,” Sabreen Abu Shanab told Reuters as she described her three children waking up drenched and freezing.
Gaza’s civil defence reported hundreds of distress calls from families whose makeshift tents have been flooded. “Our crews can only evacuate citizens from their damaged shelters to other places that are mostly unsuitable to shelter, and they remain in the open – under the rain and bitter cold,” it said on Telegram.
Hamas, which governs Gaza, has appealed to the international community for urgent relief. They have called on the UN to send “relief supplies and tents to protect hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians from the cold and the disastrous effects”.
“The humanitarian and legal duty of the international community and the UN requires urgent action to provide relief to our people in the Gaza Strip, who have been subjected to a Zionist crime of genocide and ethnic cleansing,” the group said in a statement.
Palestinian authorities, meanwhile, announced on Monday that five more detainees from Gaza have been killed in Israeli prisons.
The deaths are “clear evidence of the extent of the occupation’s brutality and its detachment from all human values,” they added.
Hamas also accused Israel of “the crimes of enforced disappearance, the policy of medical negligence, the acts of torture, abuse and deprivation” towards Palestinian prisoners. The group said the crimes it alleges are the results of “international impotence” and “the unjust American bias against our people”.
The worsening winter conditions come as Gaza’s healthcare system is in near-total collapse as Israeli forces intensify attacks on hospitals. On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike on Al Wafa hospital in Gaza City killed seven people. The military claimed that the strike was targeted at Hamas militants.
Earlier, on Friday, Israeli forces raided Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, detaining over 240 people, including dozens of medical staff.
The hospital has since been rendered non-operational, leaving northern Gaza with a single small functioning medical facility.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization, said on Monday that hospitals in Gaza have become a “battleground”.
