AT least six infants have died from hypothermia in the last two weeks in Gaza, Palestinian medics have said.
Temperatures have plunged in recent days, with temperatures dropping below 10C at night and storms blowing in from the Mediterranean.
Hundreds of thousands of people are living in tent camps and war-damaged buildings in the midst of a fragile ceasefire.
Dr Ahmed al-Farah, head of the paediatric department at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, told The Associated Press that it received the body of a two-month-old girl on Tuesday. He said another two infants were treated for frostbite, with one of them discharged later.
Saeed Saleh, of the Patient’s Friends Hospital in Gaza City, said five infants aged one month or younger have died from the cold over the last two weeks, including a one-month-old who died on Monday.
He said another child has been placed on a ventilator.
Zaher al-Wahedi, head of the Gaza Health Ministry’s records department, said it has recorded 15 deaths from hypothermia this winter, all of them children.
The ceasefire that paused 16 months of war between Israel and Hamas militants has allowed a surge in humanitarian aid, mainly food, but residents say there are still shortages of blankets and warm clothing, and little wood available for fires.
There has been no central electricity in Gaza since the first few days of the war, and fuel for generators is scarce. Many families huddle on damp sand or bare concrete.
“It’s incredibly cold,” Rosalia Bollen, a spokesperson for the United Nations children’s agency, said earlier this month.
“I have no clue how people can sleep at night in their makeshift tents.”
Israel’s military offensive, launched in response to Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, has been among the deadliest and most destructive in recent history.
More than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The hundreds of thousands of people who have been able to return to northern Gaza under the ceasefire have settled wherever they can amid the ruins.
The ceasefire’s first phase will end on Saturday and may not be extended. If fighting resumes, the current flow of humanitarian aid is expected to drop dramatically.
Even if the truce endures, it is unclear when anything in Gaza will be rebuilt.
The World Bank has estimated the cost of reconstruction at over 50 billion dollars (£39.4bn), and it could take years just to clear the rubble.
