At Least 3 Palestinian Babies Freeze to Death in Gaza Amid Israeli Blockade

At least three Palestinian infants have frozen to death in Gaza in recent days amid winter temperatures and inadequate shelter due to Israel's 446-day U.S.-backed assault and blockade of the besieged coastal enclave, according to medical officials there.

Gaza Health Ministry Director Dr. Muneer Alboursh said that Sila Mahmoud Al-Faseeh, a 3-week-old baby girl, died Sunday "from the extreme cold" in a tent where her forcibly displaced family is sheltering on a beach in al-Mawasi, an Israeli-designated "safe zone" for displaced Palestinians.

Sila's father, Mahmoud al-Faseeh, told The Associated Press that he wrapped the infant in a blanket and tried to keep her warm as the temperatures fell to 48°F (9°C)—below the fatal threshold for hypothermia—on a windy night in their unsealed tent on cold ground.

"It was very cold overnight and as adults we couldn't even take it," al-Faseeh explained. "We couldn't stay warm."

Al-Faseeh said that when he woke up, he found his daughter unresponsive and stiff, her body "like wood."

Warning: Video contains images of death.

Sila was rushed to a field hospital where doctors unsuccessfully tried to revive her. Ahmed al-Farra, director of the children's ward at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, confirmed to the AP that the girl died of hypothermia and said that two other babies, ages 3 days and 1 month, were also brought to the hospital within the past 48 hours after freezing to death.

Gazan and international humanitarian officials said in October that nearly 17,000 Palestinian children were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 7, 2023. Overall, more than 45,000 Palestinians have been killed. More than 2 million others have also been wounded, forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened.

Israel's conduct in the war is the subject of an ongoing International Court of Justice genocide case led by South Africa. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, are fugitives from the International Criminal Court, which in November issued arrest warrants for the pair and for Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Most of the verified Palestinian deaths in Gaza during the first 10 months of the war were children aged 5-9, according to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

"For over 14 months, children have been at the sharp edge of this nightmare," United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) communications specialist Rosalia Bollen said last week. "In Gaza the reality for over a million children is fear, utter deprivation, and unimaginable suffering."

"The war on children in Gaza stands as a stark reminder of our collective responsibility," Bollen added. "A generation of children is enduring the brutal violation of their rights and the destruction of their futures."

UNICEF has called Gaza "the most dangerous place in the world to be a child."

In June, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres added Israel to his so-called "List of Shame" of countries that kill and injure children during wars and other armed conflicts.

On Tuesday, Philippe Lazzarini, who heads the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, said that "in Gaza, one child gets killed every hour."

"These are not numbers," he stressed. "These are lives cut short."

Correction: This article has been corrected to note that Gaza and international officials said in September that nearly 17,000 Palestinian children have been killed since October 7, 2023. It originally said over 18,000.