TRANSCRIPT
Being wrapped in a blanket wasn’t enough to keep Sila Mahmoud Al-Faseeh alive in the icy cold winter of a Palestinian refugee camp.
At just 21 days old, Sila took her last breath, dying of hypothermia in a tent that wasn't properly sealed.
"We woke up this morning and found her biting her tongue and all cramped up. She became stiff like wood because of how cold it was. We took her to the hospital where we learned that her condition was the result of the cold weather that led to her heart stopping and caused her to freeze. "
That's her father Mahmoud al-Faseeh.
Sila's short life was one marked by deprivation - her mother too malnourished to breastfeed, the family desperately trying to access essential baby formula.
Sila wasn't the only baby to die this way in recent days.
There were at least two others, a one-month old and another only three-days-old.
The director of the children’s ward at Nasser hospital, Ahmed al-Farra, says the war has been devastating for children.
"She was in good health and she was born naturally but because of the severe cold in the tents, that led to a significant decrease in temperature which made her bodily systems stop working and led to her death. This is a screaming example of the consequences of this unfair war and its impact on the people of the Gaza Strip, especially children. Infants can’t tolerate low temperatures. This war needs to end in any way and for families to return to their homes."
The suffering continues for the innocent caught up in the conflict between Hamas and Israel which started after an attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023 in southern Israel.
That killed 1,200 Israelis including an estimated 30 children.
Two-hundred hostages were taken, according to Israeli tallies; some were returned, others killed and a number believed to be around 96 are still unaccounted for.
On the first night of Hanukkah, Judaism's festival of lights in Tel Aviv, residents held a silent protest for those who remain hostages in Gaza.
Dressing in all white, mothers, daughters and supporters of hostages held the quiet vigil.
Simona Steinbrecher was there.
She's the mother of hostage Doron Steinbrecher.
Doron, a 30 year-old veterinary nurse, was taken hostage on October 7.
"We sit here mothers and people with white clothes, quietly. When with our quiet, it's a strong voice to call and to ask for everyone to make the deal and bring all the 100 hostages back."
In retaliation, Israel launched a massive bombardment of Gaza, that according to Gaza's health ministry has claimed the lives of at least 45,000 Palestinians and displaced most of Gaza's population of 2.3 million people.
Various attempts at a ceasefire have stalled since the conflict began, with Hamas and Israel blaming one and another over a failure to reach a ceasefire agreement despite progress in recent talks.
On Tuesday, an Israeli negotiating team working on a ceasefire returned from Qatar to Israel, after what the prime minister’s office called a significant week of talks.
Hamas claims Israel has set new conditions, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is accusing the group of going back on understandings already reached.
Majed bin Mohammad Al-Ansari, the spokesman for Qatar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, says negotiations are continuing in Qatar, but there is no clear end in sight.
"We keep hitting rock bottom. And every time we think we've had rock bottom in the crisis in Gaza, we see other bottoms opening up. As a result, the humanitarian situation in Gaza is something that is going to be a shame on this generation in the international community. We have not been able to deal with it. We have not been able to solve it. And the crisis only continues and widens."
The US and Arab mediators, Qatar and Egypt have stepped up efforts to conclude a deal in the past two weeks.
Israeli negotiators have been focusing on a hostage deal while Palestinians continue to accuse Israel of seeking to permanently depopulate northern Gaza to create a buffer zone, which Israel denies.
On the ground, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz says Israel will retain security control of Gaza, including by means of buffer zones and controlling posts, creating what he describes as a new reality in Gaza.
“In Gaza, too, we will ensure that there are security spaces, buffer zones and command posts that will ensure the security of the communities. And with all this we will act to achieve the two goals of the war – to release all the kidnapped people home and to defeat Hamas. There will be no Hamas government here and no Hamas military here - a different reality will be created here thanks to the fighting that continues every day, even now.”
Meanwhile reporting from Gaza continues to be one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.
Palestinian authorities and media reports say five journalists have reportedly been killed in an Israeli strike in the vicinity of a hospital in central Gaza.
The Al Jazeera network says the journalists from the Al-Quds Today channel were covering events near al-Awda Hospital, located in the Nuseirat refugee camp, when their broadcasting van was hit by an Israeli air strike killing those inside.
As of December 20, 2024, the Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 141 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel, and Lebanon since the war began, making it the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992.
