Close Menu
  • Home
  • UNSUBSCRIBE
  • News
  • Lifestyle
  • Tech
  • Entertainment
  • Sports
  • Travel
Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp
Trending
  • ‘Trash’ found deep inside a Mexican cave turns out to be 500-year-old artifacts from a little-known culture
  • Powerful Mother’s Day geomagnetic storm created radio-disrupting bubbles in Earth’s upper atmosphere
  • ‘The Martian’ predicts human colonies on Mars by 2035. How close are we?
  • Ram in the Thicket: A 4,500-year-old gold statue from the royal cemetery at Ur representing an ancient sunrise ritual
  • How much of your disease risk is genetic? It’s complicated.
  • Black holes: Facts about the darkest objects in the universe
  • Does light lose energy as it crosses the universe? The answer involves time dilation.
  • US Representatives worry Trump’s NASA budget plan will make it harder to track dangerous asteroids
Get Your Free Email Account
Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp
Baynard Media
  • Home
  • UNSUBSCRIBE
  • News
  • Lifestyle
  • Tech
  • Entertainment
  • Sports
  • Travel
Baynard Media
Home»News»Gaza’s babies struggle to cope with plummeting temperatures
News

Gaza’s babies struggle to cope with plummeting temperatures

EditorBy EditorDecember 29, 2024No Comments5 Mins Read
Share Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Reddit Telegram Email
Share
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email

Seela al-Faseeh was only two weeks old when her father, Mahmoud al-Faseeh, 31, said he took her from their makeshift tent near Khan Younis to the pediatric emergency ward at Nasser Hospital on Wednesday, shortly after her body turned blue and stiff. 

“We woke up to find the girl like wood,” Faseeh told NBC News.

When doctors examined the baby, they found no health problems or congenital issues. Instead, they said, her heart had stopped beating because of the temperature plummeting during the night. 

She was born amid the war, Faseeh said, but she died because of the cold. 

Ahmed al-Farra, director of the hospital’s pediatric ward, confirmed to NBC News that Seela had died from hypothermia, a medical emergency that occurs when the body’s temperature drops to dangerously low levels. Dying from hypothermia could take hours or days, with babies and children especially vulnerable.

The displaced Fasih family, living in a makeshift tent in the Al-Mawasi, lost their two-week-old baby, Sile, due to the freezing conditions.
The lifeless body of an infant being carried to Nasser Hospital after she died from the cold weather Wednesday. Hani Alshaer / Anadolu via Getty Images

He added that he is tending to such cases daily, with at least four babies dying from the bitter cold in Gaza in the past week.

“Every day, we have two to three cases of hypothermia,” he said. “This is catastrophic and a disaster.” 

So far, United Nations estimates that more than 14,500 children have been killed over 14 months, with thousands more injured. 

That rate, Philippe Lazzarini, head of the U.N. Agency for Palestinian Refugees, said on Tuesday meant that one child in Gaza is killed every hour.

As a harsh winter sets in across the besieged territory, temperatures in southern Gaza have dropped especially low at night, with most Palestinians in displaced tents unable to find ways to stay warm in the cold, wind and rain. 

“Cold injuries, such as frostbite and hypothermia, pose grave risks to young children in tents and other makeshift shelters that are ill-equipped for freezing weather,” Edouard Beigbeder, UNICEF’s regional director for the Middle East said in a statement on Wednesday.

“With temperatures expected to drop further in the coming days, it is tragically foreseeable that more children’s lives will be lost to the inhumane conditions they are enduring, which offer no protection from the cold,” he added.

Image:
Tamim Marouf, 6, inside his family’s tent with his siblings Hala, 10, and Malek, 4, at a tent camp on the beach in central Gaza.Abdel Kareem Hana / AP

Beigbeder said that aid workers’ ability to provide essential winter protection like blankets, warm clothing, and other emergency supplies are severely restricted by the limited humanitarian aid Israeli authorities are allowing into Gaza. 

On Friday, Lazzarini said that blankets and other winter supplies “have been stuck in the region for months waiting for approval to get into Gaza.”

In a post on X, COGAT, Israel’s military liaison with the Palestinians, said Sunday that over the past 3 months, the agency had facilitated the entry of 9,300 tons of winter related items into Gaza, for a total of 24,000 tons of winter supplies since the start of the war.

Mahmoud Faseeh described his family’s situation as “harsh” in the sands of al-Mawasi, once a seaside village along southern Gaza’s Mediterranean coast, that has since become a crowded tent camp for hundreds of thousands of the enclave’s displaced people.

“We sleep on the sand without any covers, and the tent does not protect us from the cold and chill,” he said. “I don’t know what to say. It’s a very tragic life, exhaustion, and the children are constantly sick due to the cold and the effects of the war.”

Ahmad al-Zahrani, a nurse working at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, is among those who have died from the cold weather in recent days. 

His body was found inside a tent in al-Mawasi on Friday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement confirming his death. “Ahmad al-Zahrani has passed away due to the severe cold that the residents of the Gaza Strip are experiencing.” 

Image:
Manal al-Hasoumi, 8, barefoot outside his family’s tent on a beachfront in central Gaza, feeding kittens the remains of packets of cheese. Abdel Kareem Hana / AP

“This incident comes amidst the difficult humanitarian conditions faced by displaced citizens, as the suffering of Gaza’s residents increases due to falling temperatures and a lack of heating resources in the tents,” it continued.

The war that followed the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks that Israeli officials say killed 1,200 people in southern Israel, has decimated Gaza. 

Israeli forces have since killed some 45,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and destroyed much of the enclave’s basic infrastructure and health system.

This week, UNICEF issued a stark warning against the war’s disproportionate impact on Gaza’s children, especially during the winter. 

“Winter has now descended on Gaza. Children are cold, wet, and barefoot. Many still wear summer clothes. With cooking gas gone, many are searching through rubble for scraps of plastic to burn,” Rosalia Bollen, UNICEF’s communication specialist, said during a press briefing in Geneva.

Source link

Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
Previous ArticleWill Poulter, Jeremy Allen White & More Love Lives of The Bear Stars
Next Article Space photo of the week: Hubble captures a cosmic snow angel created by a bright, young star
Editor
  • Website

Related Posts

News

University of Minnesota student lost visa for drunk driving, not protests, ICE says

April 1, 2025
News

Restaurant chain Hooters files for bankruptcy to enable founder-led buyout

March 31, 2025
News

There’s no such thing as a fully American-made car

March 31, 2025
Add A Comment

Comments are closed.

Categories
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • News
  • Sports
  • Tech
  • Travel
Recent Posts
  • ‘Trash’ found deep inside a Mexican cave turns out to be 500-year-old artifacts from a little-known culture
  • Powerful Mother’s Day geomagnetic storm created radio-disrupting bubbles in Earth’s upper atmosphere
  • ‘The Martian’ predicts human colonies on Mars by 2035. How close are we?
  • Ram in the Thicket: A 4,500-year-old gold statue from the royal cemetery at Ur representing an ancient sunrise ritual
  • How much of your disease risk is genetic? It’s complicated.
calendar
July 2025
M T W T F S S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031  
« May    
Recent Posts
  • ‘Trash’ found deep inside a Mexican cave turns out to be 500-year-old artifacts from a little-known culture
  • Powerful Mother’s Day geomagnetic storm created radio-disrupting bubbles in Earth’s upper atmosphere
  • ‘The Martian’ predicts human colonies on Mars by 2035. How close are we?
About

Welcome to Baynard Media, your trusted source for a diverse range of news and insights. We are committed to delivering timely, reliable, and thought-provoking content that keeps you informed
and inspired

Categories
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • News
  • Sports
  • Tech
  • Travel
Facebook X (Twitter) Pinterest WhatsApp
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • UNSUBSCRIBE
© 2025 copyrights reserved

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.