Gaza children face freezing winter in tent camps as death toll grows
Holding the motionless body of his newborn baby wrapped in a blanket, Yahya Al-Batran imagines what his son, Jumaa, would say if he could speak.
Holding the motionless body of his newborn baby wrapped in a blanket, Yahya Al-Batran imagines what his son, Jumaa, would say if he could speak.
“I left you for God, Daddy,” Batran says as Jumaa, eyes open and dressed in a sweater too big for his frail body, lies still in his arms.
Jumaa is one of at least five children to have succumbed to the bitter cold and difficult conditions consuming Gaza this winter amid Israel’s deadly offensive in the Palestinian enclave, according to local health officials.
His twin brother, Ali, was fighting for his life in intensive care, officials at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah told NBC News on Wednesday, after Batran and his wife woke up to find the two infants, who were born premature, lying motionless in their tent days ago.
In an interview with NBC News’ crew on the ground on Sunday, Batran recounted how he woke to the sounds of his wife desperately trying to rouse their newborn twins as they lay motionless in the cold tent — now home to the family of eight after they had fled from northern Gaza’s Beit Lahia.
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