Nine months into the war in Gaza, Nora al-Batran was pregnant with twins. The 38-year-old suspect was chased away several times by her husband and children when they ran away from bombs and guns to a tent in the city of Deir al Balah.
On December 6, al-Batran gave birth to her twin sons, Jumaa and Ali, at Al-Aqsa city hospital.
But two weeks later, Jumaa died of hypothermia as the cold weather set in and al-Batran struggled to keep her children warm under the tarp of her tent at night.
“Because of the cold, my children stopped moving, stopped rescuing,” he told CBC freelance videographer Mohamed El Saife. “It’s too hard…. It’s too cold.”
Cold weather and heavy rains have lashed much of the Gaza Strip in recent weeks, leaving many Palestinians living in tents vulnerable to the weather, as one father dug a hole under his tent to shelter his family.
Jumaa was among eight children who died of hypothermia in recent weeks, according to Dr. Ahmed al Farra at the Nasser Medical Complex.
In the second winter of the war in Gaza, the weather added another dimension of suffering to the hundreds of thousands of people who have been displaced.
Jumaa al-Batran was born on Dis. 6 and his twin brother, but due to the bad weather in Gaza, Jumaa did not survive when he suffered from hypothermia.
Temperatures drop to around 10 C to 15 C at night in Gaza at this time of year.
A report published by UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, in January says that children are dying of hypothermia due to the lack of access to basic goods that do not cross the border to the people of Gaza.
“The equipment that was supposed to protect them had been in the region for months waiting for permission from the Israeli authorities to enter Gaza,” it read.
Infants are at greater risk of hypothermia because they lose heat faster than adults. Many have had to spend hours wet and cold due to Gaza’s climate, both of which can lead to hypothermia, according to for health professionals.
Sitting in his tent, his son, Ali, arm, al-Batran remembers the day he found Jumaa’s lifeless body next to him.
He said that last night he had covered Jumaa with many blankets, leaving his nose exposed so that he could breathe, then he put a hot water bottle in the blanket to warm him up.
“I woke up at 6am and found my son blue and frozen. He wasn’t breathing,” said al-Batan. “I felt guilty that my child died in front of my eyes because of the cold and I couldn’t do anything for him.”
Tayseer Obeid says he hopes that the 1.5 meter deep hole he dug under his tent will protect his children from the cold, but he cannot protect them in war.
The eight children who died were all less than a month old, said al Farra, head of children at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza.
“The situation is very serious and very serious. [Newborns] they cannot protect themselves from severe hypothermia because they are fragile children,” El Saife told.
Children are more prone to hypothermia
Al Farra said those children are already prone to hypothermia even if they live in heated buildings, “so what will happen if they are in a tent with no furniture, no electricity, no heating oil?”
Every day, al Farra said, he sees four to five cases of children with hypothermia at Nasser Hospital.
Although the hospital is doing everything possible to warm the children and advise the parents on how to warm them, he said some arrive already dead like Jumaa.
Al-Batran is among hundreds of mothers trying to survive the winter with her family. She said her older children sleep close to each other, using body heat to keep warm while she focuses on one-month-old Ali.
“The nights are very cold, people live in makeshift tents, every time there is a strong wind, it rains inside their tents,” Amanda Bazerolle, an emergency coordinator at Doctors without Borders, told CBC News.
Bazerolle said that last winter, most of those who left their homes were in Rafah, where it was still standing and people were able to take shelter.
“Today, most people are hiding in tents or makeshift tents, so they are very vulnerable, very exposed to the elements,” said Bazerolle.
In the mail to XIsrael’s official agency tasked with coordinating humanitarian aid programs, COGAT, said it was working with partners to “make essential items and winter equipment delivered to Gaza.” The message goes on to say that 8,400 tons of winter goods entered the Gaza Strip in the past three months, “including heating materials, blankets, coats and clothing.”
Hiding from the cold
In Khan Younis, a worried father tries to protect his children from the cold by going underground.
Tayseer Obeid dug a hole 2 meters wide and 1.5 meters deep under his tent to give his ten children shelter from bad weather.
These holes that people call “graveyards” are covered with plastic tarpaulins to try to prevent the sand from falling on the family.
She built shelves to hold small household items and stairs from the sand so the kids could get in and out easily.
Above, he put together two tents to house his family. Both have plastic cover tiles only. In the midst of all this, he made two rounds of play for his children. He said it took him 60 days to dig this hole.
“This was a daily routine for me. It’s a difficult and tiring daily job,” he told El Saife. “The world is tough and tough, and there were days when we were tired.”
Back in Deir al Balah, al-Batran holds his still-living son, Ali, in his arms.
The one-month-old baby was wrapped in several blankets after his recent visit to the intensive care unit of Al-Aqsa Hospital with symptoms of hypothermia.
With few options, the mother has relied on hot water bottles placed on the blankets to keep the baby warm. But those only last a short time before they cool down.
He said he fled the war in northern Gaza and encountered destruction, cold and hunger in central Gaza.
“How can a person live like this?” he said. “How do I keep my children warm?”