War on Gaza: Palestinian infants freeze to death amid Israeli siege

Three Palestinian babies have died from hypothermia in southern Gaza over the past two days, as a suffocating Israeli siege makes harsh winter conditions uninhabitable.

Doctors reported on Wednesday that a three-week-old girl froze to death overnight as temperatures plummeted amid a wet winter across the war-battered Palestinian enclave.

The baby’s tent was not sealed against the wind and the ground was cold, the doctors said.

On Thursday, another baby, Sila Mahmoud al-Faseeh, was found unresponsive. By the time doctors reached her, her lungs had deteriorated and she was declared dead from hypothermia.

“In the morning, when her mother was going to breastfeed her again, we found her blue, with blood coming from her mouth due to the cold,” her father said in a video shared online, holding her in a white shroud with her purple lips visible against her pale face.

“She had bitten her tongue and was frozen.”

The baby “froze to death from the extreme cold” in al-Mawasi, said Dr Munir al-Bursh, director general of the Palestinian Ministry of Health, on X.

In another post, he described the tents in Gaza as “fridges of death”, citing the deaths of two other babies due to the bitter cold.

According to Ahmed al-Farra, head of paediatrics and obstetrics at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, the infants were a three-day-old and a one-month-old baby.

The deaths underline the dire conditions in Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are packed into derelict makeshift tents, fleeing Israeli shelling in different parts of the strip.

The Israeli military has occupied and besieged Gaza since October 2023, blocking nearly all necessary life-saving supplies – including electricity, clean water, fuel, food, medicine and tents – from reaching civilians.

Israeli forces have killed at least 45,259 Palestinians in Gaza since 7 October last year, according to the latest figures from the Palestinian health ministry published on Sunday. The majority of those killed are women and children.

Dozens more have died due to the harsh conditions imposed by the Israeli army, including starvation, lack of medical care and hypothermia.

Child killed every hour

On Tuesday, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, issued a damning statement, revealing that a child is killed in Gaza every hour amid the relentless Israeli assault.

“They are not just numbers; they are lives lost in a short time without any justification,” the agency stated, highlighting the devastating toll of Israel’s actions.

In a post on X, the agency emphasised the harrowing plight of Gaza’s children, many of whom are physically and emotionally scarred. Those who survive endure the trauma of displacement, are deprived of education and are left scavenging for food among the ruins of their homes.

Unrwa revealed that at least 14,500 children have been killed during the conflict, calling for an immediate end to the war. “The killing of children cannot be justified,” the agency stressed, urging global action to end the bloodshed.

Last week, over 50 British MPs and peers signed a letter urging Prime Minister Keir Starmer to implement a medical evacuation programme for injured Palestinian children in Gaza.

Meanwhile, the prospect of reaching a ceasefire in Gaza has remained elusive as Israel and the Palestinian movement Hamas continue to trade blame for stalling the agreement.

This comes after both sides had said there was progress in recent weeks in the indirect negotiations mediated by Qatar and Egypt.

On Wednesday, Hamas said Israel had set new conditions, causing delays in reaching a ceasefire agreement. The conditions reportedly pertain to the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the release of Israeli captives and the return of displaced Palestinians.

The Palestinian group, however, said it was showing flexibility and that talks on a ceasefire are progressing.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement saying Hamas “continues to lie” and is “reneging on understandings that have already been reached” in Gaza ceasefire talks.

The statement further claimed that Hamas is “continuing to create difficulties in the negotiations” and that “Israel will continue its relentless efforts to return all of our hostages”.