Nine-month-old baby dies of cold in Gaza: Palestinians

GAZA CITY: A nine-month-old baby died of hypothermia on Thursday, a doctor told AFP, after days of harsh weather and flooding in the Gaza Strip that newly displaced thousands of Palestinians living in tents.

The doctor, who saw the child and spoke on condition of anonymity, said that nine-month-old Kinan Ahmad Raqiq “died from hypothermia inside his family’s displacement tent” in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Gaza’s civil defense agency spokesman Mahmoud Bassal separately confirmed the death of the child to AFP.

Heavy rain last week flooded tens of thousands of people’s tents in Gaza, where virtually the whole population has been displaced at least once by three years of Israeli strikes in response to the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas.