A FOURTH infant has died of hypothermia in the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by nearly 15 months of Israeli attacks are huddled in tents along the rainy, windswept coast as winter arrives.

Twenty-day-old Jomaa al-Batran was found with his head as “cold as ice” when his parents woke up today, his father Yehia said. The baby’s twin brother Ali was moved to the intensive care unit of al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

Their father said the twins had been born one month premature and spent just a day in the nursery at the hospital, which, like other health centres in Gaza, has been overwhelmed by victims of Israel’s genocidal bombardment and is only partially functioning.

He said medics had told their mother to keep the newborns warm, but it was impossible because they live in a tent and temperatures regularly drop below 10°C at night.

“We are eight people and we only have four blankets,” Mr Batran said as he cradled his son’s pale body. He described drops of dew seeping through the tent cover overnight. “Look at his colour because the cold. Do you see how frozen he is?”

Children, some of them barefoot, stood outdoors and watched him mourn. The shrouded infant was laid at the feet of an imam, barely larger than his shoes. After prayers, the imam took off his ankle-length coat and wrapped it around the father.

At least three other babies have died from the cold in recent weeks, according to local health officials.

Meanwhile, an Israeli strike on the upper floor of a hospital in Gaza City killed at least seven people today and wounded several others, according to the Civil Defence emergency service.

The Israeli military claimed to have struck a Hamas control centre inside the building.

Elsewhere, international aid group MedGlobal called on Israel today to immediately release Kamal Adwan Hospital director Dr Hussam Abu Safia.

Dr Abu Safia, who for months posted updates on social media about conditions inside the hospital and Israel’s attacks on it, was detained on Friday with dozens of other medical workers after Israeli soldiers stormed the building and reportedly burnt it down.

The Israeli military said on Saturday that Dr Abu Safia was being held for questioning on suspicion of “being a Hamas terrorist operative.”