Gaza babies struggle with hypothermia as temperatures drop and war continues around them

At least four infants have died of hypothermia in recent weeks in the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by nearly 15 months of war are huddled in tents along the rainy, windswept coast as winter arrives.

Jomaa al-Batran, 20 days old, was found with his head as “cold as ice” when his parents woke up Sunday, his father, Yehia, said. The baby’s twin brother, Ali, was moved to the intensive care unit of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

Their father said the twins were born one month premature and spent just a day in the nursery at the hospital, which like other health centers in Gaza has been overwhelmed and is only partially functioning.

He said medics told their mother to keep the newborns warm, but it was impossible because they live in a tent and temperatures regularly drop below 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) at night. Deaths from hypothermia can occur at temperatures between 30 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

“We are eight people, and we only have four blankets,” al-Batran said as he cradled his son’s pale body. He described drops of dew seeping through the tent cover overnight. “Look at his color because the cold. Do you see how frozen he is?”

Children, some of them barefoot, stood outdoors and watched him mourn. The shrouded infant was laid at the feet of an imam, barely larger than his shoes. After prayers, the imam took off his ankle-length coat and wrapped it around the father.

“Feel warm, my brother,” he said.

Dr. Fidda Al-Nadi, a doctor at Nasser Hospital, told CBS News that they admit one or two cases of hypothermia every day. The very youngest, Al-Nadi said, are the most vulnerable.

“In the stress we are living in, many children are born prematurely, and this predisposes him more to hypothermia,” Al-Nadi said.

Mahmoud al-Faseeh buried his daughter Sila this past week — she died of hypothermia at just 3 weeks old.

“I went to wake her up for breastfeeding and she was frozen and blue, she was bleeding from her nose,” he told the Associated Press. “Her heart had stopped from the intensity of the cold.”

Israel launched an offensive on the Gaza Strip after declaring war against Hamas following the deadly attacks by the group’s militants on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed some 1,200 people.

Israel’s bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza has killed over 45,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its count.

The offensive has caused widespread destruction and displaced some 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, often multiple times. 

Aid groups have struggled to deliver food and supplies and say there are shortages of blankets, warm clothing and firewood.

Elsewhere, an Israeli strike on a hospital’s upper floor in Gaza City on Sunday killed at least seven people and wounded several others, according to the Civil Defense, first responders affiliated with the Hamas-run government. The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas control center inside the building, which it said was no longer serving as a hospital.

And a strike near Nuseirat in central Gaza killed eight and wounded more than 15, according to officials at Al-Awda Hospital.

Meanwhile, Israel’s military said militants launched five projectiles from northern Gaza into Israel, the second time in two days, adding that two were intercepted and the rest likely fell in open areas. Rockets from northern Gaza had been rare in recent months as Israel’s military increased operations there.

contributed to this report.