Baby Mohammed freezes to death as Gaza battles winter and displacement

Khan Younis, Gaza Strip – With a pale face and unrelenting tears, Eman Abu al-Khair sits inside her tent, clutching a small bag of her infant’s clothes. Her newborn had died of hypothermia the day before.

The devastated mother, 34-years-old, still cannot believe she lost her baby, Mohammed, alive for just 14 days. Amid the devastation left by Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, she simply wasn’t able to keep him warm enough.

“I can still hear his tiny cries in my ears,” Eman tells Al Jazeera, the pain visible on her face. “I sleep and drift off, unable to believe that his crying and waking me at night will never happen again.”

The family’s tragedy began late on the night of December 13 in al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, where they had moved to after being displaced from their home in the east of Khan Younis.

Eman put her baby to sleep, then woke later to check on him and found him in an alarming condition.

Temperatures had droppedand without proper shelteror clothing for a newborn, there was no protection for Mohammed.

“His body was cold as ice. His hands and feet were frozen, his face stiff and yellowish, and he was barely breathing,” she recalls.

“I woke my husband immediately so we could take him to the hospital, but he couldn’t find any means of transportation to get us there.”

It was late at night, and heavy rain was still pouring, making it impossible for the father to reach the hospital even on foot.

With no alternative, the family had to wait until the morning.

“As soon as daylight broke, we rushed with an animal-drawn cart towards the hospital,” Eman says. “But unfortunately, we arrived too late. His condition was already critical.”

Medical staff at the Red Crescent Hospital in Khan Younis were shocked by the infant’s deteriorated state. His face had turned completely blue, and he was convulsing, prompting doctors to rush him into the paediatric intensive care unit.

Mohammed spent two days in intensive care on a ventilator before he died on the morning of December 15.

“My baby had no medical problems. His tests showed no illness. His tiny body simply couldn’t withstand the extreme cold inside the tents,” Eman says, her eyes filling with tears.

On Tuesday, Gaza’s Ministry of Health announced the death of an infant due to a severe drop in body temperature caused by extreme cold amid harsh living conditions brought on by the recent weather.

In a press statement, the ministry said that infant Mohammed Khalil Abu al-Khair, two weeks old, had died from acute hypothermia.

“The child, Abu al-Khair, arrived at the hospital two days ago and was admitted to the intensive care unit, but he passed away yesterday,” the statement said.

With Mohammed’s death, the number of children who have died from the cold weather in Gaza has risen to four this month, after the ministry announced three similar deaths during the previous week.

Celebration turned to devastation

The Abu al-Khair family had welcomed the birth of Mohammed on December 1 in an atmosphere of joy and celebration after a gruelling pregnancy that, as ِِEman describes, was filled with hardship, with the war still ongoing.

“My pregnancy was extremely difficult. We went through very hard conditions and famine, and I was exhausted,” she says.

“But all my suffering faded when Mohammed was born healthy and well. I never imagined we would lose him after just two weeks.”

Eman recounts her desperate attempts to keep her newborn warm using every piece of clothing and the blankets she had, while the baby’s father, Khalil, tried to secure the tent and seal every opening to protect the baby from the cold.

But all their efforts were in vain.

“We’re living in tents on the street, as you can see. What can a piece of cloth or nylon really do?” she says, pointing around the tent.

“The cold is indescribable. Every morning, we wake up to find water flooding our bedding from underneath.”

Baby Mohammed was Eman and Khalil’s second child, after their two-year-old daughter, Mona, who had grown up during the war, which began in October 2023.

“When we returned from the burial, little Mona came to me asking, ‘Where is the baby?’ Every moment she asks where her little brother went, and her question kills me,” Eman says as she holds her daughter and cries.

Eman wonders what crime her baby, and other children his age, have committed to deserve what she describes as the “cruel” fate of a life of misery inside tents.

“Our children have died in every possible way: bombing, snipers, hunger, cold, one after another. My child is not the first, and he will not be the last.”

‘Not a life’

Munir al-Bursh, the director general of Gaza’s Ministry of Health, has warned of further deaths among children, the elderly and the sick due to plummeting temperatures inside rain-soaked displacement tents.

Al-Bursh said that moisture and standing water inside tents create an environment ripe for the spread of respiratory diseases among displaced people, while patients are unable to access any form of healthcare.

Despite the start of a ceasefire in October, little reconstruction has taken place in Gaza, where the majority of residential buildings have been destroyed by Israeli bombing and systematic demolition.

Israel has also continued to attack Gaza on a regular basis and shows little sign that it is willing to allow real reconstruction to begin, at least in the near term.

That means that the conditions that led to Mohammed’s death are likely to continue.

And the tragic loss of her baby has left Eman obsessed with fear for the life of her two-year-old daughter.

“I over-warm her, cover her with everything I have, and I never sleep. I check on her constantly. I feel a fire burning in my heart,” she says.

Caught between trying to console herself and clinging to patience, Eman wonders how long conditions in Gaza will continue to deteriorate to this extent.

“This is not a life. Sadly, the reality looks like it will continue this way for 10 more years,” she says.

“We want a dignified life for our children, nothing more. Where are the caravans? Where are the housing units? Why is no one moving to save us?”