Freezing Cold: Tents Cant Keep Death Away in Gaza

Gaza’s Government Media Office stated, Saturday, 110,000 out of 135,000 tents used by displaced Palestinians in the war-torn Gaza Strip are now out of service and have “completely deteriorated”.

The Office accused the Israeli military of “causing a tragic humanitarian crisis” that is once again putting the lives of thousands of civilians at risk as the freezing winter sets in.

“This catastrophic humanitarian situation is a direct result of the genocide committed by the ‘Israeli’ occupation army, which has completely destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes of these citizens, forcing them to resort to living in tents that lack the minimum requirements for a decent life,” the statement said.

Palestinian nurse Ahmed al-Zaharneh, who was among the crews working at the European Gaza Hospital, died on Friday because of “extreme” weather conditions, according to the Health Ministry.

The Ministry said, “His body was found inside his tent in al-Mawasi area, west of the city of Khan Younis, southern Gaza.”

“This incident comes in light of the difficult humanitarian conditions that displaced citizens are experiencing, as the suffering of Gaza residents increases due to low temperatures and the lack of heating means in tents,” the Ministry added.

At least three babies also died from hypothermia in southern Gaza last week. Doctors reported on Wednesday that a three-week-old girl froze to death overnight as temperatures plummeted amid a wet winter across the war-torn Palestinian enclave. The baby’s tent was not sealed against the wind and the ground was cold, the doctors said.

On Thursday, another baby, Sila Mahmoud al-Faseeh, was found unresponsive. By the time doctors reached her, her lungs had deteriorated and she was declared dead from hypothermia. The baby “froze to death from the extreme cold” in al-Mawasi, said Dr Munir al-Bursh, director general of the Palestinian Ministry of Health, on X.

In another post, he described the tents in Gaza as “fridges of death”, citing the deaths of two other babies due to the bitter cold.

According to Ahmed al-Farra, head of paediatrics and obstetrics at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, the infants were a three-day-old and a one-month-old baby.

The deaths highlight the dire conditions in Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are crammed into makeshift tents, fleeing Israeli shelling from various parts of the strip according to the Quds News Network.