By: Rima Elsewasy
GAZA, February 26, 2025 (WAFA) - Thirty-year-old Ola did not know that her first child, Amro, would lose his life because of the severe cold that recently struck the Gaza Strip and the surrounding region. The tent she moved into two months ago was not enough to protect her infant’s heart, or his life, which he lost to the cold.
This is the reality for newborns in the Gaza Strip, who suffer from a lack of heating supplies necessary to stay alive. As a result, seven children have died from the cold in the Gaza Strip in the past two days.
Ola, who gave birth to Amro after two miscarriages, says: "I am displaced from the Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, and now I am staying in a tent over the rubble of my family’s home."
She added, "On Thursday at dawn, I noticed severe cold symptoms in my baby Amro. Suddenly, his body temperature rose above 39°C, and his breathing became excessively loud. We took him to Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi Hospital, where he stayed for 15 hours. When his condition worsened, he was transferred to the Patient's Friends Benevolent Society Hospital (PFBS), where he stayed in the ICU for two hours before his death was declared," Ola cries. To be noted, the Al-Rantisi hospital is currently destroyed but still operating with minimal medical and health protocols.
She concluded, "I am living in psychological shock and a nervous breakdown. The cold killed my little baby, with his tender body suffering from the lack of warmth that my embrace tried to provide."
Yesterday, six children from the Gaza Strip died as a result of the severe cold, and today, Wednesday, a two-month-old girl in the Shuja'iyya neighborhood died due to the cold.
According to medical sources, the number of children who have died because of the cold waves since the beginning of winter has reached 15. They also pointed out that hospitals in the sector, particularly children’s hospitals, are no longer able to deal with the cases they receive from cold-related complications.
The sources emphasized that the occupation has not adhered to humanitarian protocols, including allowing the entry of medical supplies, heating equipment, tents and mobile homes.
Residents of Gaza, especially the displaced, continue to sleep on the ground in tents that do not protect them from the winter cold, amid the deterioration of the medical and health situation in hospitals, which are operating with minimal resources.
Dr. Sa’id Salah, the medical director at Patient's Friends Benevolent Society Hospital, comments: "In the past two weeks, we have observed cases of death among newborns and premature infants due to the severe cold."
He added, "The symptoms begin with the freezing of limbs, the cessation of blood circulation, low blood pressure and difficulty breathing. We try to intervene medically with resuscitation efforts, some of which succeed, while others fail."
According to the medical director at Patient's Friends Benevolent Society Hospital, nine cases arrived during the mentioned period, six of which unfortunately passed away, one of them an hour after reaching the hospital. The six included five children from Gaza, while the sixth was from Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip.
He concluded by saying, "We have called on the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF to pressure the occupation to allow the entry of necessary heating equipment to warm these infants."
The people of the Gaza Strip are suffering from a lack of shelter and medical care due to the occupation’s aggression on the Strip and the absence of heating supplies as a result of fuel shortages, amid a severe polar cold wave.
T.R.
