(Deir el-Balah) In front of his tent in the heart of the Gaza Strip, Yahya al-Batran lights a fire to try to warm himself with his children and his wife, a few days after the death of their infant due to the cold according to reports doctors.
Posted at 9:39 a.m.
Joumaa died in the family tent in Deir el-Balah just twenty days after her birth. Ali, his twin, is in the intensive care unit at Nasser hospital, in the south of the besieged territory devastated by the war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas.
Completely destitute, the Batran family, displaced by the war, lives in a makeshift tent in Deir al-Balah, made of blankets and worn fabrics. In recent weeks, temperatures have dropped to 8 degrees Celsius accompanied by heavy rain.
“We don’t have enough blankets or suitable clothing. I saw my baby start to freeze, his skin turned blue, then he died,” laments Noura Al-Batran, 38, still convalescing after giving birth.
Her twins were born premature. “I told the doctor that there was no heating where we live, but he decided to take them out of the incubator. »
“I fled the bombings with my children to protect them from the bombings and now they are dying here from hunger and cold? », exclaims the father, Yahya al-Batran, 44 years old.
“Dying before our eyes”
Like hundreds of thousands of other Gazans, the Al-Batran family has been displaced several times by the fighting and bombings that have destroyed much of the Gaza Strip.
The displaced live in makeshift tents and suffer from a lack of food, fuel and medicine, with the UN warning for months of famine in the poor and overpopulated territory.
Yahya al-Batran, who fled with his wife, children and disabled parents from Beit Lahia (North), says he gave the twins the names of two nephews killed in Israeli bombings.
“We watch our children die before our eyes,” he said bitterly.
PHOTO BASHAR TALEB, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Palestinians shelter from the rain in a camp for displaced people in Khan Younes, in the Gaza Strip, December 31, 2024.
On Sunday, the Hamas Ministry of Health in Gaza announced the “death due to the cold” of Joumaa al-Batran, and the next day reported seven children who had died from the cold in one week.
In a corner of the Batran tent, erected with hundreds of others in a palm grove, Yahya embraces three of his children on a rain-soaked carpet.
He then places a small pot of water on the fire to prepare tea which he mixes with dry bread. With a little cheese and thyme, this will serve as a lunch for the whole family.
“My children are dying of hunger and cold,” cries his wife.
” Jelly ”
In Khan Younès, further south, Mahmoud Al-Fassih says he found his little daughter Sila “frozen” in their tent in the al-Mawassi sector, where he took refuge after fleeing Gaza City (North).
He took her to the emergency room, but she had already lost her life.
The Dr Ahmad Al-Farra, director of the emergency and pediatric department at Nasser hospital, told AFP that the three-week-old baby arrived at the hospital “in severe hypothermia, without vital signs, with cardiac arrest having led to his death.
The Hamas government’s press service in Gaza warned Monday of the impact of a severe weather depression forecast in the coming days, which poses a “real threat to two million displaced people.”
The Dr Farra warns of the possibility of an increase in deaths among children, infants and the elderly.
Twenty-day-old Aisha al-Qassas also died of cold in al-Mawassi, according to her family.
“In Gaza, everything leads to death,” laments Mohamed al-Qassas, his uncle. “Those who do not die under Israeli bombing succumb to hunger or the cold. »
