Children dying from hypothermia in Gaza

Babies in the Gaza Strip are struggling with hypothermia as temperatures drop and war continues around them.

At least four infants have died of hypothermia in recent weeks, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by nearly 15 months of war are huddled in tents along the rainy, windswept coast as winter arrives.

Jomaa al-Batran, 20 days old, was found with his head as ‘cold as ice’ when his parents woke up Sunday, his father, Yehia, said. The baby's twin brother, Ali, was moved to the intensive care unit of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

Their father said the twins were born one month premature and spent just a day in the nursery at the hospital, which like other health centers in Gaza has been overwhelmed and is only partially functioning.
He said medics told their mother to keep the newborns warm, but it was impossible because they live in a tent and temperatures regularly drop below 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) at night. Deaths from hypothermia can occur at temperatures between 30 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

Children, some of them barefoot, stood outdoors and watched him mourn. The shrouded infant was laid at the feet of an imam, barely larger than his shoes. After prayers, the imam took off his ankle-length coat and wrapped it around the father.

Dr. Fidda Al-Nadi, a doctor at Nasser Hospital, told CBS News that they admit one or two cases of hypothermia every day. The very youngest, Al-Nadi said, are the most vulnerable.

"In the stress we are living in, many children are born prematurely, and this predisposes him more to hypothermia," Al-Nadi said.

Mahmoud al-Faseeh buried his daughter Sila this past week — she died of hypothermia at just 3 weeks old.

Source: CBS