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."



An American Tradition: Defeated Candidates Attending the President-Elect’s Inauguration

Vice President Kamala Harris talks to reporters after overseeing the ceremonial certification of her defeat to incoming President-elect Donald Trump, at the US Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP)
Vice President Kamala Harris talks to reporters after overseeing the ceremonial certification of her defeat to incoming President-elect Donald Trump, at the US Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP)
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An American Tradition: Defeated Candidates Attending the President-Elect’s Inauguration

Vice President Kamala Harris talks to reporters after overseeing the ceremonial certification of her defeat to incoming President-elect Donald Trump, at the US Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP)
Vice President Kamala Harris talks to reporters after overseeing the ceremonial certification of her defeat to incoming President-elect Donald Trump, at the US Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP)

In January 1981, Jimmy Carter nodded politely toward Ronald Reagan as the new Republican president thanked the Democrat for his administration's help after Reagan resoundingly defeated Carter the previous November.

Twenty years earlier, after a much closer race, Republican Richard Nixon clasped John F. Kennedy's hand and offered the new Democratic president a word of encouragement.

The US has a long tradition of defeated presidential candidates sharing the inauguration stage with the people who defeated them, projecting to the world the orderly transfer of power. It's a practice that Vice President Kamala Harris will resume on Jan. 20 after an eight-year hiatus.

Only once in the television era — with its magnifying effect on a losing candidate's expression — has a defeated candidate skipped the exercise. That candidate, former President Donald Trump, left for Florida after a failed effort to overturn his loss based on false or unfounded theories of voter fraud.

With Harris watching, Trump is scheduled to stand on the Capitol's west steps and be sworn in for a second term.

Below are examples of episodes that have featured a losing candidate in a rite that Reagan called "nothing short of a miracle."

2001: Al Gore and George W. Bush Democrat Al Gore conceded to Republican George W. Bush after 36 days of legal battling over Florida's ballots ended with a divided Supreme Court ruling to end the recount.

But Gore, the sitting vice president, would join Bush on the west steps of the Capitol a month later as the Texas governor was sworn in. After Bush took the oath, he and Gore shook hands, spoke briefly and smiled before Gore returned to his seat clapping along to the presidential anthem, "Hail to the Chief."

A disappointed Gore accepted the outcome and his role in demonstrating continuity of governance, former Gore campaign spokeswoman Kiki McLean said.

"He may have wished, ‘I wish that was me standing there,’" McLean said. "But I don't think Gore for one minute ever doubted he should be there in his capacity as vice president."

Hillary Clinton smiles wide as she and former President Jimmy Carter, from left, former first lady Rosalynn Carter, former President Bill Clinton, former President George W. Bush, and former first lady Laura Bush wait for the start of the inauguration ceremony to swear President-elect Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States, at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 20, 2017. (AP)

2017: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Democrat Hillary Clinton was candid about her disappointment in losing to Trump in 2016, when — like Gore against Bush — she received more votes but failed to win an Electoral College majority. "Obviously, I was crushed," she told Howard Stern on his radio show in 2019.

Calling Inauguration Day "one of the hardest days of my life," Clinton said she planned to attend Trump's swearing-in out of a sense of duty, having been first lady during her husband's presidency from 1993 to 2001. "You put on the best face possible," Clinton said on Stern's show.

2021: Mike Pence (with Trump absent) and Joe Biden Trump four years ago claimed without evidence that his loss to President Joe Biden was marred by widespread fraud. Two weeks earlier, Trump supporters had stormed the Capitol in a violent siege aimed at halting the electoral vote certification.

Instead, then-Vice President Mike Pence was the face of the outgoing administration.

"Sure, it was awkward," Pence's former chief of staff Marc Short said.

Still, Pence and his wife met privately with Biden and his wife to congratulate them in the Capitol before the ceremony, and escorted newly sworn-in Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband out of the Capitol afterward, as tradition had prescribed, Short said.

"There was an appreciation expressed for him by members of both chambers in both parties," he said.

1993: George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton Bush stood on the Capitol's west steps three times for his swearing-in — as vice president twice and in 1989 to be inaugurated as president. He would attend again in 1993 in defeat.

He joined Bill Clinton, the Democrat who beat him, on the traditional walk out onto the east steps. Bush would return triumphantly to the inaugural ceremony eight years later as the father of Clinton's successor, George W. Bush.

1961: Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy Nixon had just lost the 1960 election by fewer than 120,000 votes in what was the closest presidential contest in 44 years. But the departing vice president approached Kennedy with a wide grin, a handshake and an audible "good luck" just seconds after the winning Democrat's swearing-in.

Nixon would have to wait eight years to be sworn in as president, while his losing Democratic opponent — outgoing Vice President Hubert Humphrey — looked on. He was inaugurated a second time after winning reelection in 1972, only to resign after the Watergate scandal.

President-elect Ronald Reagan applauds as outgoing President Jimmy Carter waves to the crowd at Reagan's inaugural ceremony, in Washington, Jan. 20, 1981. (AP Photo, File)

1933: Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt Like Bush, Hoover would attend just one inauguration as a new president before losing to a Democrat four years later. But Democrat Franklin Roosevelt's 1933 swearing-in would not be Hoover's last. Hoover would live for another 31 years, see four more presidents sworn in, and sit in places of honor at the two inaugurations of Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower.

1897: Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison Cleveland, the sitting Democratic president, lost reelection in 1888 while winning more popular votes than former Indiana Sen. Benjamin Harrison. But Cleveland still managed to hold Harrison’s umbrella while the Republican was sworn in during a rainy 1889 inauguration.

Elected to a second, non-consecutive term in 1892, Cleveland, however, would stand solemnly behind William McKinley four years later at the Republican's 1897 inauguration, leaving the presidency that day after losing the 1896 nomination of his own party.

Cleveland was the only president to win two non-consecutive terms until Trump's victory in November.