As widely predicted, winter is once again claiming lives in the Gaza Strip, as it has done over the past three years. A nine-month-old baby died from exposure to extreme cold on Thursday, as displaced families endure harsh conditions without adequate shelter or heating.
The doctor, who saw the child and spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP that nine-month-old Kinan Ahmed Raqiq “died from hypothermia inside his family’s displacement tent” in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.
Ahmed Raqiq said that his son Kinan died of cold during the night in their tent in southern Gaza. “I woke up only to see his skin had turned blue so I rushed him to Nasser hospital, but he had already died from hypothermia and frozen to death,” he said.
“I am in complete shock. I found myself holding my son wrapped in burial shroud,” he said outside the hospital, dried tears on his face as he held his son wrapped in a white sheet.
Days ago, six-month-old Ehab Mohammad Hamad froze to death in his family tent.
“Before sunrise on November 8th, baby Ehab Mohammad Hamad was found dead with blue lips, fingers and toes,” the Sameer Project reported. “At only 6 months, Ehab froze to death. This happened after the family’s tent got flooded from the storm on the weekend.”
“No matter how hard we tried to keep the child warm and wrap him in blankets, it was all in vain,” the child’s grandmother told the Sameer Project.
Deadly winters
Over the past several months, the Gaza authorities and humanitarian organisations had made repeated appeals for sufficient aid to be allowed into the besieged enclave in order to alleviate the suffering that residents have been enduring for the past three years. Their struggles have not eased despite the “ceasefire” that came into effect in October 2025.
Gaza residents are in desperate need of tents and mobile homes, but the Israelis have severely restricted their entry. “Most Gazans are living in worn-out tents that cannot withstand what would be considered a moderate storm elsewhere,” a UN official saidMonday.
According to UN estimates, “65 percent of Gaza’s population, about 1.4 million people, live in tents or makeshift shelters.”
Restrictions on the entry of tents
During the heavy rains over the weekend, more than 70,000 tents were flooded, forcing families to abandon their makeshift shelters and leaving thousands of already vulnerable people exposed to the elements without adequate protection, food or other basic necessities.
Tents are ready to enter Gaza; however, the Israelis continue to deny their entry.
“More than 150,000 tents purchased by humanitarian partners and Member States are outside Gaza ready to be dispatched, including about 117,000 from the Egyptian Relief Committee in Al-Arish,” the UN aid coordination office said on Monday.
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) revealed last month that the Israelis had classified tents, tarpaulins, timber, cement, tools, rope, duct tape and other materials used to build tents or repair shelters as “dual-use items” — which could potentially be used as weapons — and were allowing only 15 trucks a week carrying such items to enter the Gaza Strip, a level nowhere near sufficient.
Vulnerable children
Deaths due to extreme cold have become a common feature of winter in Gaza since the start of the Israeli genocide in October 2023. By January this year, 24 people, including 21 children, had died of hypothermia in Gaza since October 7.
Having endured nonstop bombings, starvation, famine, and multiple displacements over more than three years of the ongoing Israeli genocide, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are physically weaker, and their shelters are in an even worse state, leaving them increasingly exposed to the elements.
Last month, Israel also severely restricted the entry of food, raising fears of another famine. The lack of adequate nutrition, combined with worsening weather conditions, will leave children particularly vulnerable in the coming months.
Without urgent intervention and the lifting of restrictions on essential supplies, the deaths of Kinan and Ehab may not be the last. —Palestine Will Be Free
