To die of cold on the night when the birth of Jesus is celebrated, not too far from where the Son of God was born. It happened in Khan Yunis, a town in the Gaza Strip with an adjoining refugee camp, 70 kilometers from Bethlehem. A tent instead of a hut, and no ox or donkey to warm the newborn: only the horror of the war between Israel and Hamas which leaves no escape even for children.
Silareports the Palestinian agency Wafashe was born three weeks ago. She died of hypothermia, after yet another night under a nylon roof, warmed only by her parents’ bodies. The mother, with the little milk from her breast, tried to calm his crying. «At night she woke up three times crying. Then he stopped, he no longer had the strength. In the morning she was unconscious, like a piece of wood”, he toldAssociated Press the father Mahmoud al-Faseeh.
An unspeakable but by no means isolated drama in the Strip: In the last few days alone, Sila’s death is the fourth death of a newborn in similar circumstances. Two more little ones, he reports Ahmed al-Farradirector of the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis, were three days and one month old. The fourth died today. According to local health officials, Food shortages among mothers are contributing to an increase in health problems among their babies. The Ministry of Health of the Strip, an expression of Hamas, has issued the latest war bulletin: 38 dead in 24 hours, 45,399 since the beginning of the war, around 108 thousand wounded. «With pain I think of Gaza, of such cruelty; to the machine-gunning of children, to the bombing of schools and hospitals… How much cruelty! – Pope also said Francis at the Angelus on Sunday, on the eve of the opening of the Holy Year – Let us pray that at Christmas there may be a cessation of fire on all war fronts, in Ukraine, in the Holy Land, throughout the Middle East and throughout the world”. Christmas has passed, the war continues: the death of Sila and the other innocent children shakes everyone’s consciences.
In the photo: little Sila, who died of hypothermia on Christmas night, watched over by her father.
