At Least 6 Gaza Babies Die From Hypothermia Amid Israeli Blockade

Local medical professionals said Tuesday that at least half a dozen babies have died this week in Gaza amid winter weather and Israel's ongoing blockade of the obliterated Palestinian enclave, where hundreds of thousands of people are living in tent encampments and other unheated makeshift structures.

Dr. Saeed Salah, the medical director at Patients' Friends Benevolent Society Hospital in Gaza City, told reporters that three infants died on Monday and three more on Tuesday from complications due to exposure to the cold.

"In the past two weeks, we admitted eight newborns suffering from severe cold injuries," Salah said. "Three of them died within hours of arrival. They were only a day or two old, weighing between 1.7 and 2 kilograms (3.7-4.4 lbs.)."

"All of these children arrived with low temperatures, shortness of breath, and cold extremities that reached the point of freezing," Salah told The Washington Post by phone Tuesday. "These children live with their families in tents and destroyed homes and suffer from a lack of supplies that help provide them with the necessary warmth, especially with the Israeli intransigence in bringing in the necessary fuel."

Gaza experiences cold, wet, and windy winters, with temperatures often dipping well below 50°F (10°C) at night. Hypothermia can be deadly at temperatures over 60°F (15°C) in overexposed conditions such as those existing in Gaza, where the overwhelming majority of the strip's 2.3 million residents have been forcibly displaced, most homes have been destroyed or damaged, and bodies have been weakened from more than 500 days of an Israeli siege for which the country is facing genocide charges at the International Court of Justice.

The sixth reported infant death of the week was of 2-month-old Sham Yousef al-Shanbari, who died in her family's tent in the Mawasi area of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

"Her body turned into a piece of ice... and her heartbeat stopped," uncle-in-law Obaida al-Shanbari told the Post by phone Tuesday.

Yusuf al-Shanbari, Sham's father, told The Associated Press: "Yesterday, I was playing with her. I was happy with her. She was a beautiful child, like the moon."

(Warning: The following video contains images of death.)

Dr. Ahmed al-Farah, the head of the pediatric department at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, told the AP that al-Shanbari did not have any illness but died from exposure because she lived in a tent. Al-Farah also said the hospital has treated two other infants for frostbite.

At least three Palestinian infants died from exposure to cold conditions earlier this winter, when Israeli forces were still carrying out their assault on Gaza that left more than 170,000 people dead, wounded, or missing.

Hamas, whose political wing rules the Gaza Strip, has accused Israel of violating the terms of a fragile monthlong cease-fire, not only by killing and wounding Palestinian civilians and postponing a scheduled prisoner release, but also by delaying the delivery of mobile homes, tents, and other lifesaving humanitarian aid. Israeli officials deny the allegations.

"If adequate aid, including shelter supplies, were allowed to reach civilians and hospitals, these deaths would be entirely preventable."

"Newborns should not be dying of hypothermia in Gaza. This is not a tragedy of nature but a man-made crisis," Fikr Shalltoot, Gaza director for the London-based charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, told the Post.

"If adequate aid, including shelter supplies, were allowed to reach civilians and hospitals, these deaths would be entirely preventable," Shalltoot added. "This suffering is the direct result of Israel's restrictions on essential humanitarian aid."

Edward Ahmed Mitchell, deputy executive director at the Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement Tuesday: "The Israeli government's genocidal campaign in Gaza has left most of its population homeless. To block the entry of temporary housing so that returning Palestinians, including infants, die of exposure is entirely unconscionable."

"The Trump administration and the international community must take immediate action to force the Israeli government to allow desperately needed housing supplies to enter Gaza," Mitchell added.