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Sixth Palestinian Child Dies of Hypothermia in Gaza as Israel Continues Unrelenting Attacks 

HeadlineDec 30, 2024

In Gaza, a 1-month-old baby named Ali al-Batran has died from hypothermia in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. The baby’s death from bitter cold temperatures faced by Palestinians displaced by more than a year of Israeli attacks came just one day after the infant’s twin brother, Jumaa al-Batran, also succumbed to hypothermia. They were the fifth and sixth Palestinian babies to die of exposure this week, as Israeli forces continue their withering assault.

At least 27 Palestinians were killed and 149 wounded in the latest 24-hour reporting period, bringing the official death toll from Israel’s nearly 16-month assault to more than 45,500, though that’s likely a vast undercount.

On Sunday, an Israeli attack on the upper floor of al-Wafa Hospital in Gaza City killed at least seven people and wounded several others. The nearby Ahli Hospital was also damaged from artillery fire.

Meanwhile, CNN reports Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, is being held at Sde Teiman, an infamous Israeli military base in the Negev Desert that doubles as a prison where Palestinians have been tortured. On Friday, Dr. Safiya was arrested as Israeli troops stormed Kamal Adwan, northern Gaza’s last major functioning hospital, setting the facility on fire and forcing staff and patients outside at gunpoint. This is Faris al-Afaneh, a patient who survived the ordeal.

Faris al-Afaneh: “At around 4 a.m., the army came into Kamal Adwan Hospital and asked all the medical staff, the patients and all the people accompanying them to go out into the courtyard. And then they sorted everyone, the medical teams in one group, the patients in another. Then they got ambulances to get us and sent us through the main gates. … We were taken for interrogation at around 3 p.m. They stripped us naked and left us there until sunset, with no one to aid us. We were left in the dust. And then one soldier would come around every once in a while and would curse at us and spit on us. It was very ugly.”

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