Three babies freeze to death in Gaza refugee camp amid Israeli blockade

Father of three-week-old victim Sila Mahmoud al-Faseeh says family slept on cold sand in tent exposed to bitter winds.

Three Palestinian babies have died of hypothermia at the al-Mawasi refugee camp in southern Gaza in recent days, as temperatures plummet and Israel’s blockade on food, water, and essential winter supplies continues.

Ahmed al-Farra, director of the children’s ward at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, confirmed the death of three-week-old Sila Mahmoud al-Faseeh on Wednesday, adding that two other babies, aged three days and one month, had been brought to the hospital over the previous 48 hours after dying of hypothermia.

“She was in good health and she was born naturally, but because of the severe cold in the tents there was a significant decrease in temperature which made her bodily system stop working and led to her death,” said al-Farra, referring to Sila’s death in an interview with Al Jazeera.

Mahmoud al-Faseeh, father of baby Sila, said the family had been living in “bad conditions” in their tent at al-Mawasi, an area of dunes and farmland on Gaza’s Mediterranean coast, close to the southern town of Khan Younis.

Al-Mawasi was designated as a “safe zone”, but was attacked repeatedly over the last 14 months of the Israeli offensive.