Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza has forced pregnant and breastfeeding women to endure brutal and inhumane conditions, depriving them of the ability to care for and protect their newborn babies. An estimated 50,000 pregnant women and 20,000 newborn babies have been placed at unimaginable risk as a result. Alongside continuous forcible displacement, their suffering has been further exacerbated by natural conditions, including plummeting freezing temperatures. During the harsh winter months of 2024-2025, a reported number of 15 newborns have tragically died from hypothermia in Gaza. On International Women's Day, Al-Haq recounts the stories of four of these tragic ‘deaths’ as told by their mothers. In doing so, Al-Haq illustrates how Israel’s infliction of conditions of life, imposing a brutal closure and siege of the territory, while denying the delivery of basic humanitarian goods for human survival, is killing Palestine’s youngest and most vulnerable population.

1. Aisha Al-Qassas, 22 days old

Rana Amin Al-Qassas, 32, a mother of four boys, has devastatingly lost her newborn baby girl of 22 days, Aisha, to the unbearable weather conditions on 20 December 2024 while displaced in in Khan Younis. Rana recounted to Al-Haq the endless displacement she and her family endured before giving birth:

“We received an evacuation order, so we evacuated from Sheikh Nasser [Khan Younis] to Rafah in October [2023], while they [the Israeli occupying forces (IOF)] were bombing the area over our heads. My family and I settled in Rafah with our acquaintances for two months. We left our house without anything. It was difficult to flee, it was cold. [Then,] we left to Al-Mawasi Khan Younis [after heavy bombing of Rafah], it was a difficult night, fires were shot at all angles. I don’t know how we escaped from Rafah to Al-Mawasi Khan Younis, Al-Qararah, Hamad. The entire time at Hamad we could not sleep at night...

…ammunition would penetrate our tent. I would place my hand on my children, fearing that [the bullets] would hit their heads. We left Hamad and came here, to Qaware’ street [in Al-Mawasi Khan Younis]. We were displaced many times until we settled here. [The IOF] ordered us to leave this area more than once. The area was also targeted, and we left. Tents went up in flames and everything burned.”

After giving birth, Rana described the death of her baby girl on the cold night of 20 December 2024:

“I gave birth on 28 November 2024 [at the British Hospital]. I was in the tent when I went into labor. It was 6:00 am when my husband called an ambulance. I normally experience difficult labor, but this time it went well - although our life in the tents was very difficult. I spent six hours in the British Hospital, and my baby girl was in a good state. Her name was Aisha. When I left the hospital and went back to the tent, the temperature was very low, it was very cold. Although my baby was healthy, she caught a cold as a result. It’s a tent after all. I took her back to the hospital, and they told me that nothing was wrong with her. So, I went back to the tent. Nothing was wrong with her; the baby was normal. The day she passed away, she breastfed. She was sleeping in my arms the entire night. I was so happy as it was the first day she breastfed properly. We slept together, while she was in my arms, at dawn. That Friday night was very cold. She passed away here in the tent. When I woke up, I found her frozen, like a piece of wood. [Her father] took her to the hospital right away. The doctors told us that she passed away from the cold [hypothermia], freezing.

After this devastating loss, Rana was forced to return to the tent, where she and her family had to continue to endure the brutal cold. She explained that no matter what she provided for her children, it would never be enough as long as they do not have an adequate shelter. Rana expressed:

“[W]here else would we go? Our home was burned, everything was burned. The tent does not prevent the cold. We want a place to shelter us from the cold and keep us warm. What can this tent made of nylon, paper, cloth do for us? It does not shield us from the wind, rain, cold or water. In the rain, in the middle of the night, we have to leave [the tent], so my child can use the bathroom in the cold. The bathroom is far away from us, and the dogs are around us. I get scared. My whole pregnancy I was scared of the dogs.”

Commenting on the death of her daughter, Rana expressed: “It’s a very difficult feeling. I waited for her; she was my only daughter. I have four boys and she was the only girl. I was waiting for her. I had her, and now she is gone.”

2. Sila Al-Faseih, 22 days old

Similarly, Nariman Durgham Ibrahim Al-Faseih, 22, a mother of two children from Gaza, lost her 22-day-old newborn baby girl, Sila, to the cold on 25 December 2024 in Al-Mawasi Khan Younis. She described to Al-Haq her repeated displacement from Gaza throughout the genocide:

“Our home was destroyed on the third day of the war. I left to protect my children, and the [IOF] displaced us. We first went to Al-Shifa Hospital. We used to sleep in the corridors on the floor. It was really cold in November [2023]. I tried to keep my children warm, but we had no blankets or mattresses. Our home was destroyed, and we could not take anything from it, no clothes or mattresses, no jewelry or money. When the IOF raided Al-Shifa Hospital, they displaced us to the south. We were very scared. We would sleep and wake up in fear. We were [displaced] on foot to the south, and settled in Al-Maghazi [Deir Al-Balah] in a tent.

We had no blankets or mattresses. We stayed in the street in the cold. Some people felt sad for us and gave us two mattresses and blankets. My daughter was very young then. She was barely one year old, and I did not have anything to cover her with, and no diapers, so she would urinate on herself, and my son would urinate himself from fear. We really suffered during that time. We were displaced again to Hamad [Khan Younis] and stayed in a tent for a month, then to the Red Crescent Society Hospital in December for two weeks, then to Rafah for three months, then to Al-Mawasi Khan Younis.”

Nariman recounted to Al-Haq the conditions of the night she lost her baby girl, Sila, on 25 December 2025:

“I gave birth in the British Hospital on 3 December 2024. My baby girl was healthy. But I had no clothes, milk, or diapers for her. Her name was Sila, 22 days old. I really tried to keep her warm, but had no blankets or clothes for her, nor food. On 25 December, it was very cold, we slept on the sand. She breastfed normally. At 5:00 am [on 25 December 2024], I woke up to feed my daughter. My husband lifted the blanket off her and saw her frozen cold. Blood was pouring from her nose and mouth. I was shocked, she was breastfeeding normally. My husband took her to the British Hospital, but she could not be saved. The doctors told us she died from hypothermia. I was heartbroken.”

Nariman stressed to Al-Haq: “I need to keep my two remaining children warm so I do not lose them as well.”

The dreadful conditions imposed by Israel, including the IOF’s systematic attacks on the healthcare system and use of starvation as a weapon of war, have  resulted in increases in miscarriages by up to 300 percent, with  95 percent of pregnant and lactating women facing severe food poverty. This calculated act of deprivation leaves not only the lives of the pregnant women at risk but also the lives of their newborn babies. Rana Al-Qassas described to Al-Haq the extreme living conditions in the tents while displaced: “Food and water [are scarce] for everyone, not just me. All our food is canned and frozen. There isn’t any healthy food. Even if you want to buy food [if available], it’s very expensive, and we cannot afford it.”

3. Ali Hussam Fadil Azzam, one week old

The dire conditions were echoed by Mansourah Mahmoud Hussein Azzam, mother of 6 boys and 2 girls form Gaza, ​who also lost her newborn baby boy, Ali, to the cold while in displacement in Khan Younis in December 2024. She recalled to Al-Haq the impact of severe food poverty on her health while pregnant:

“There is no food. Everything is expensive, I would eat soup, macaroni, or rice, and sometimes uncooked rice [from charities - Takiya]. I would feel dizzy [while pregnant], and wouldn’t even tell my husband that I feel sick. My pregnancy got worse in the 7th month. The doctors couldn’t believe I was pregnant when I went to give birth. I underwent a caesarean section, and my newborn [weighing 1.7 kg] needed to be kept in an incubator (NICU), but the doctors at Naser Hospital discharged me the next day. It was a very difficult labor. I was not put under full anesthesia, as I was conscious during the procedure. If he had been kept in the NICU, the baby might have lived.”

Upon returning from the hospital to the tent, Mansourah and her baby endured severe conditions from the harsh winter. Without proper shelter, her newborn was unable to survive the cold and tragically passed away. She recalled:

“After a week [of his birth], I woke up at night and held my baby to feed him. He opened his mouth, he wanted to breastfeed, but then he closed it. I put him down, and blood started to pour down from his nose and mouth. I screamed for my husband, who took him to the hospital. The doctors told us that he died of hypothermia. He was completely normal. It was from the cold. He was one week old. He wore [warm] clothes. I even covered him fully with a blanket, and left enough room for him to breathe. His name was Ali Hussam Fadil Azzam.”

Following this incident, Mansourah expressed: “I advise all women not to get pregnant during the war. That is the most important thing.”

4. Youssef Kalloub, one month old

Al-Haq also interviewed Safaa Eyad Al-Rantisi, 24, another displaced mother of three children from Rafah, who lost her one-month-baby-boy, Youssef, to the cold while in displacement in a tent in Al-Mawasi Khan Younis on 3 January 2025. During her pregnancy, food was very scarce. She ate rice, macaroni, and lentils as provided by charities (also known as Takiya in Arabic). They suffered from lack of warm clothes. Safaa’s husband, Ahmad Anwar Hasan Kalloub, 31, informed Al-Haq that the price of a blanket has reached around 400 NIS (111 USD). On 3 January 2025, Safaa woke up in the middle of the night to check on her child, and found him freezing cold. They took him to the hospital and doctors confirmed that he died of hypothermia. The doctor said this was the eighth case they received as such. Safaa had previously given birth to another child during the genocide, and breastfed her for two months only. The child she says feels weak, and suffers from developmental delay due to insufficient dietary intake of essential nutrients.

General Context

For more than 15 consecutive months, Israel has carried out a relentless genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza, destroying all aspects of life. Despite the fragile ceasefire, the genocide persists as the conditions imposed by Israel are deliberately calculated to bring about a continuing destruction of the Palestinian group. The atrocities uncovered in Gaza have further exposed the genocidal and eliminatory nature of Israel’s 76-year-old regime of Zionist settler-colonialism and apartheid.

Under the guise of “evacuation orders,” Israel has systematically displaced Palestinians while unceasingly targeting those seeking refuge in densely populated so-called “safe zones”, rendering 90 percent of Gaza’s population internally displaced. Alongside the indiscriminate targeting of Palestinians, Israel has systematically and intentionally hindered the delivery and distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza, depriving Palestinians of their means of subsistence and survival, in particular for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers and their newborns. The above accounts inform of the devastating consequences of Israel’s genocide on mothers and children – from women undergoing emergency cesarean sections without access to anesthetics or pain relief, insufficient numbers of NICUs to sustain underdeveloped newborns, and lack of food to support the health of women prenatal, during and post-partum. By attacking hospitals and maternity wards, imposing a suffocating siege and employing starvation as a method of war, pregnant women and their newborns are deprived of maternal and neonatal health services and essential life-saving necessities, resulting in a tragic surge in preventable maternal and neonatal deaths, and rendering Israel’s genocide an attack on the natural growth of the Palestinian society.

Legal Analysis

Israel’s settler-colonial genocide underscores the ongoing and deliberate effort to ensure that life for Palestinians in Gaza cannot be sustained, with long-term devastating consequences. By continuing to block life-saving aid and basic necessities into Gaza, Israel remains in violation of the International Court of Justice’s Provisional Measures Orders issued in the genocide case of South Africa v. Israel. In addition to committing the genocidal act of “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”, Israel has by design imposed measures to prevent births within the Palestinian group in Gaza, which amounts to the fourth genocidal act under the Genocide Convention. This demonstrates that genocide extends beyond immediate destruction, to the gradual processes of annihilation of the group.

By employing laws, policies and practices to dominate the Palestinian people and control its demography under Israel’s settler-colonial apartheid regime, and by committing multiple acts of genocide, Israel is attacking the natural growth of the Palestinian population and utilizing all means to deal with the ‘demographic threat’ it deems Palestinians to pose under its Zionist regime. Al-Haq stresses the need to address the root causes of Israel’s genocide, by dismantling Israel’s Zionist settler-colonial apartheid regime, ending its illegal occupation, and ensuring the immediate and unimpeded provision of all material, logistical, financial, and social support required by Palestinians to enable them to rebuild Gaza, and reverse the devastating effects of a 15-month-genocide on the health and well-being of Palestinians. Al-Haq calls for full criminal accountability for the killings of Aisha Al-Qassas, Sila Al-Faseih, Ali Hussam Fadil Azzam, and Youssef Kalloub, and once again reiterates the demand for charges of genocide to be included on the arrest warrants of Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant.