Sila was less than three weeks old when her mother, Nariman, realized she was not moving.
“I woke up in the morning and told my husband that the baby had not moved for some time. He exposed her face and found her biting her tongue and blood oozing out,” Nariman al-Najmeh said.
In a tent on a beach in southern Gaza, Nariman sits with her husband, Mahmoud Fasih, and their two young children, 4-year-old Rayan and 2-and-a-half-year-old Nihad.
The family is said to have been displaced more than 10 times during the 14-month war.
“My husband is a fisherman. We are from the north and we left with nothing, but we did it for our children,” Nariman said in an interview with a freelance cameraman working for the BBC. Israel bans international media from entering the Gaza Strip and operating freely.
“When I was pregnant, I used to worry about how I would get clothes for the baby. I was really worried because my husband was out of work.”
For the first 20 days of her life, Sheila’s home was a small, crowded campsite in the Al Mawasi “humanitarian zone.” It is where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who had relocated from elsewhere in the territory have been ordered to relocate by the Israeli military.
The region suffers from poor infrastructure and sanitation and flooding from Mediterranean rain and waves.
“The cold is harsh and harsh. We huddled together all night because of the cold,” says Mahmoud, Sila’s father.
“Our life is hell. It is hell because in the aftermath of the war our family was martyred and our situation is unbearable.”
Despite telling civilians to go to the area, Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked al-Mawash during operations against Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza.
Scylla’s death was not caused by the bombing, but by the punishing conditions that war imposes on civilians.
She was one of six newborns who died from hypothermia in two weeks in Gaza, where nighttime temperatures fell as low as 7C (45F). There was damage due to the weather.
Nariman says Sila was born in a British field hospital established in the Khan Younis district.
“After giving birth… I started thinking about how I could secure my baby’s milk and diapers. Everything I got, I got it the hard way.”
“I never dreamed that I would give birth in such a cold, cold tent, dripping water. Water leaked and poured into the tent, and sometimes we had to run to avoid the water. For the baby,” Nariman said.
Still, Sila was born without complications.
“Her health was good. Fortunately, she suddenly started catching colds,” Nariman said. “I was sneezing and felt sick with a cold, but I had no idea I was going to die from it.”
Sila was admitted to the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis last Wednesday, where Dr Ahmad al-Farra, head of pediatrics, said she was suffering from “severe hypothermia and had no vital signs.” He stopped, had a heart attack and eventually died,” he said. .
“(The previous day) we had received two cases: one was a 3-day-old baby and the other was less than a month old. Both cases resulted in death due to severe hypothermia,” Dr. Farra said.
Babies have immature mechanisms for maintaining their own body temperature, so they can easily develop hypothermia in cold environments. Premature babies are particularly vulnerable, and Dr Farah said medical staff in Gaza had seen the number of premature babies increase during the war.
Mothers are also suffering from malnutrition and are unable to breastfeed their babies sufficiently. According to Dr. Farra, there is a shortage of infant formula due to limited delivery of humanitarian aid.
Then on Sunday another tragic incident occurred.
A second local cameraman working with the BBC met Yehia al-Batran outside Al Aqsa hospital in central Gaza. Yehia al-Batran could not bear the agony as he held his dead son Juma. Like Sheila, he was only 20 days old and had a cold that turned his face blue.
“If you touch that person, he or she freezes.” Yehia said. “All eight of us, we don’t have four blankets between us. What should I do? I see my children dying in front of me.”
“Preventable deaths reveal the desperate and deteriorating situation facing families and children across Gaza,” Edouard Beigbeder, UNICEF regional director, said in a statement Thursday.
“With temperatures expected to drop further in the coming days, it is tragically predictable that more children will lose their lives due to the inhumane conditions they endure.”
As Israeli drones flew forward, Sheila’s father Mahmoud carried her lifeless body from Nasser Hospital to a temporary cemetery in Khan Younis. There he dug a small grave in the sand.
After putting Sila to rest, Mahmoud comforted Nariman.
“Her brothers and sisters are sick and exhausted. We are all sick, heartbroken and catching colds from the cold and rain,” Nariman said. “If we do not die of war, we will die of cold.”
