Last week, Mohamed Abu Jarad returned to his tent in Gaza City’s Al-Daraj neighborhood to find his three-month-old daughter, Shaza, freezing cold and no longer breathing. The family rushed the baby to hospital, where doctors pronounced her dead from hypothermia.
This tragedy came only a week after one-month-old Aisha Ayesh Al-Agha had died of hypothermia in Khan Younis, and two weeks after two more Palestinian babies died from the cold in the north and center of the Strip within a few hours of each other: Mahmoud Al-Akra, only one week old; and Mohammed Wissam Abu Harbid, two months old.
In total, 10 infants under the age of 1 have died from hypothermia and extreme cold this winter, taking the total to around two dozen since the beginning of Israel’s onslaught on the enclave in October 2023, according to local health officials and Save The Children. All of them died while living in tents, their families helpless to keep them warm amid the freezing winter temperatures.
Hellbound and Down 