Newborn Twins Killed in Gaza Strike While Father Registered Birth

Mohammed Abu Al-Qumsan, whose wife Jumana, and newborn twins Aser and Aysal were killed in an Israeli strike while he was bringing the twins' birth of certificates, according to medics, reacts as he holds the certificates, in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, August 13, 2024. (Reuters)
Mohammed Abu Al-Qumsan, whose wife Jumana, and newborn twins Aser and Aysal were killed in an Israeli strike while he was bringing the twins' birth of certificates, according to medics, reacts as he holds the certificates, in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, August 13, 2024. (Reuters)
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Newborn Twins Killed in Gaza Strike While Father Registered Birth

Mohammed Abu Al-Qumsan, whose wife Jumana, and newborn twins Aser and Aysal were killed in an Israeli strike while he was bringing the twins' birth of certificates, according to medics, reacts as he holds the certificates, in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, August 13, 2024. (Reuters)
Mohammed Abu Al-Qumsan, whose wife Jumana, and newborn twins Aser and Aysal were killed in an Israeli strike while he was bringing the twins' birth of certificates, according to medics, reacts as he holds the certificates, in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, August 13, 2024. (Reuters)

Mohammed Abu al-Qumsan had just collected the birth certificates of his three-day-old twins when he received the news: his Gaza apartment had been bombed, killing the babies and their mother.

Footage of a distraught Abu al-Qumsan, weeping and falling as he still holds the birth certificates, has been widely circulated on social media, becoming the latest emblem of the devastating toll of the war in the Palestinian territory.

"I was in the hospital at the time when the house was targeted," he says, tears streaming down his face.

"There was a call, after the birth certificates were printed.

"The caller asked, 'Are you okay and where are you?' I told them I was at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, and I was told that my house had been bombed."

Abu al-Qumsan had left his wife, the infants and his mother-in-law in the fifth-floor flat they shared in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, which has been relentlessly bombed by Israeli forces.

"I was informed that they are in Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital and I told them I am at the entrance to the hospital," he says.

"I went inside the hospital with the birth certificates in my hands... and they told me they are in the morgue."

On Wednesday, with his home obliterated and his family gone, Abu al-Qumsan folded unused pink and yellow baby clothes outside a blue tent in Al-Mawasi, a coastal area that Israel has declared a humanitarian zone.

He never got the chance to show his wife that their babies had been legally named: Aser, the boy, and Aysal, the girl.

"On the same day I obtained their birth certificates, I also had to submit their death certificates, for my children, and also for their mother."

"I did not get the chance to celebrate their arrival. Their clothes are new, they did not wear them," he says, also showing a half-full pack of nappies.

"These nappies, we had a hard time finding them. For three months, we have been trying to buy some" in the Gaza Strip, where there has been a dire shortage of basic supplies since the start of the war.

- 'Living in terror' -

The Gaza war began with Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Fighters also seized 251 people, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 39,965 people, according to a toll from the territory's health ministry, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant deaths.

Abu al-Qumsan married his wife Jumana, a pharmacist, in July last year, before the war plunged their lives into chaos.

She endured a traumatic pregnancy as they fled from place to place to escape the bombardments. Despite carrying twins, she insisted on volunteering in hospitals until the seventh month.

"Since the beginning of the war, I have been afraid every day, living in terror, and I was afraid that she would miscarry," Abu al-Qumsan says.

"We lost friends, family, and people who were very dear to us," he adds.

"We were in a lot of pain, we were very scared. We ran a lot."

"I want to know why she was killed in this way. I want to know why she was targeted. In the house, in a safe area," he says.

"There was no prior warning of the bombing of the house. I have nothing to do with military action. We are civilians."



Sickness Can Be ‘Death Sentence’ in Gaza as War Fuels Disease 

A Palestinian woman reacts at the site following Israeli strikes on a tent camp sheltering displaced people, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, at the Al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, September 10, 2024. (Reuters)
A Palestinian woman reacts at the site following Israeli strikes on a tent camp sheltering displaced people, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, at the Al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, September 10, 2024. (Reuters)
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Sickness Can Be ‘Death Sentence’ in Gaza as War Fuels Disease 

A Palestinian woman reacts at the site following Israeli strikes on a tent camp sheltering displaced people, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, at the Al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, September 10, 2024. (Reuters)
A Palestinian woman reacts at the site following Israeli strikes on a tent camp sheltering displaced people, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, at the Al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, September 10, 2024. (Reuters)

In Gaza, falling ill can be a death sentence. Cancer patients are waiting to die, polio has returned, and many of the doctors and nurses who might have offered help are dead while the hospitals they worked at have been reduced to rubble.

Doctors and health professionals say that even if the Israel-Hamas war were to stop tomorrow, it will take years to rebuild the healthcare sector and people will continue to die because preventable diseases are not being treated on time.

"People are dying on a daily basis because they cannot get the basic treatment they need," said Riham Jafari, advocacy and communications coordinator at rights group ActionAid Palestine.

Cancer patients "are waiting for their turn to die," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Last week, Israel and Hamas agreed on limited pauses in the fighting to allow children to be vaccinated against polio after a one-year-old baby boy was found to be partially paralyzed from the disease, the first case in the crowded strip in 25 years.

But even as crowds gathered in the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younis for vaccinations on Sept. 5, bombs continued to fall in other areas with Gaza health officials saying an Israeli strike killed five people at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah.

"It will take long and so much effort in order to restore the level of care that we used to have in Gaza," said Mohammed Aghaalkurdi, medical program lead at Medical Aid for Palestinians.

Every day he sees around 180 children with skin diseases that he "just cannot treat," he said.

"Due to vaccination campaign interruptions, lack of supplies, lack of hygiene items and infection prevention control material, it (healthcare) is just deteriorating."

The conflict was triggered when Hamas-led fighters attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Since then, more than 40,800 Palestinians have been killed by Israel's offensive in the enclave, according to the Gaza health ministry, with around 92,000 wounded.

But beyond the death toll from the fighting and airstrikes, people are also succumbing to illnesses that could be cured in normal circumstances.

As with the re-emergence of polio, children will bear the brunt of these long-term consequences, health experts say.

"We are talking about disabilities, we are talking about intellectual disabilities, mental health issues," said Aghaalkurdi.

"Things that will stick to the child until they die."

SPECIALISTS KILLED

At least 490 healthcare workers have been killed since the conflict erupted, according to Gaza's health ministry. A Reuters investigation found that 55 highly qualified specialist doctors were among those killed.

With each specialist killed, Gaza has lost a source of knowledge and human connections, a devastating blow on top of the destruction of most of the Strip's hospitals.

Many people have become weak from a lack of food, as prices of basic commodities have more than quadrupled since the conflict began. When they become ill, they are also too frightened to journey to the few remaining hospitals, Jafari said.

Eighty-two percent of children aged between 6 and 23 months have limited access to quality food, according to a report by the Global Network Against Food Crises, and more than 90% of children under 5-years-old suffer from infectious diseases.

Meanwhile, skin diseases are rampant because of a lack of cleaning supplies and hygiene products, Jafari said. In markets, a bottle of shampoo can cost around $50.

Israel has severely restricted the flow of food and aid into Gaza, and humanitarian agencies have warned of the risk of famine.

Jafari expects a reckoning after the war ends.

"There is delayed suffering, delayed sadness, there are diseases that are being delayed," she said. "There is an entire journey of suffering that is being delayed until the end of the war," she said.

CANCER 'DEATH SENTENCE'

Manal Ragheb Fakhri al-Masri, 42, is one of those facing that health reckoning.

Displaced seven times with her nine children, she has a heart condition and a benign tumor in her stomach and was supposed to leave Gaza for treatment earlier this year.

But then her husband was killed and she could not bear to leave her children.

Now, having also suffered several strokes, she is bedridden, unable to leave her tent by the sea in Al-Mawasi, which Israel had declared a safe zone. She has not had any medicine in five months and has not even been able to shower for two weeks.

"My husband used to take care of me and get medicine and feed his children," she said in a phone interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "Now I do not know what do. We do not have the most basic things."

Her children try to help as much as they can and sometimes bring her seawater for her to wash with but the salty liquid offers no respite. Her children are also all suffering from red rashes but they have no creams to soothe their burning limbs.

Waseem Alzaanin, a general practitioner with the Palestine Red Crescent Society, said the lack of drugs, equipment and medical facilities is killing his cancer patients.

Gaza's only cancer center was destroyed earlier this year, he said, and many of his stage-one cancer patients are now classified as stage-four.

"The most basic requirements are not present. We cannot do anything except give them painkillers and make them comfortable with what life they have left," he said.

"It is like a death sentence," he added. "Let us not kid ourselves. We have no medical system."