Israel-Hamas war: The impossible conditions for children born into conflict
Imagine having not one, but two babies born in the middle of war.
Lina Hammad gave birth to twins in Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
It should be a time of celebration, but the stress of keeping the infants, and two other children alive, is all-consuming.
The impact of war always hits the most vulnerable.
Speaking from a damp, cold room in Khan Younis, Lina explains she had a difficult birth and needed anaesthetic and medicine that the hospital didn’t have because of the war.
Lina Hammad says she was not given anaesthetic during birth of her twins
She says the conditions are impossible: “We are sitting on blankets on a cement floor. There are no vaccinations. We need nappies, milk and clothes.”
There are four children in the family, all of them are sick.
“It’s cold, the wind comes in and it’s hard for the children,” she says. “They have chest infections and diarrhoea.”
There’s a gnawing fear among Gaza‘s parents, how do they save their children from the war, hunger and disease that is now ravaging the Gaza Strip?
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‘Quiet and unprecedented’ in Bethlehem
The aid agency Save the Children says Gaza is now the world’s most dangerous place to be a child.
More children have died in this war than in all the world’s major conflicts combined over the last three years. It’s staggering.
Lina can’t even contact her own mother. Like all the enclave’s infrastructure, Gaza’s telecommunications system has broken down.
As for her children, Lina says: “They are still coughing, I swear they can’t sleep at night. I fear for them. Last night my son was suffocating.”
Quality of life has plummeted
While Gaza is in the grips of a man-made humanitarian catastrophe, in the other Palestinian territory – the occupied West Bank – tension is boiling.
Palestinians say Israeli arrests, raids and road closures across the West Bank is making life for those living under Israeli military occupation, go from bad to worse.
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Israel says its military action in the territory is targeted at armed fighters, Palestinian militant groups and rioters.
The UN reports that this has been the deadliest year on record for Palestinians across the West Bank, by miles.
According to the agency’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), 457 Palestinians have been killed in the territory this year.
Thirty-five Israelis have also been killed in the West Bank.
In the folds of the hills and olive groves lies the village of Husan, with a population of 10,000 people. It is reeling from the impact of daily raids by the Israeli military.
Its residents tell Sky News that since the 7 October deadly rampage by Hamas, their quality of life has plummeted to a new low.
Mahmoud Zeoul was killed during an Israeli raid
On Wednesday, 18-year-old Mahmoud Zeoul, was killed during an Israeli raid.
His family say he was shot dead by the Israeli military.
In a statement to Sky News the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said there had been a riot in the village and Palestinians had thrown explosives and stones. It says it’s investigating the death.
Safaa Zeoul says the Israeli military raids the West Bank every day
But his mother, Safaa Zeoul, says: “The (Israeli) army raids the area every day. They occupy our land and it’s natural to resist them.
“We don’t have weapons but stones. They respond to stones with snipers. They are afraid of stones.”
When we visited the family, people from the local village came by to pay their respects. Local women told us they are afraid about their sons’ futures.
Tension is boiling in the West Bank
“What is going on in the West Bank is the reaction to what is happening in Gaza,” Ms Zeoul says.
“They (the IDF) shoot people indiscriminately.”
A short drive from Husan is the Christian city of Bethlehem. But there are no Christmas celebrations this year, it’s been cancelled.
Daniella Dukmak is a resident in Bethlehem
With war raining down on Gaza, the West Bank’s Christian community is mourning their friends and family displaced and killed in the southern coastal enclave.
“In 25 years I’ve never witnessed such an incredibly sad Christmas,” Bethlehem resident, Daniella Dukmak, says.
“This Christmas, we can’t turn a blind eye to what’s going on in Gaza.”
Israel has approved a plan to capture all of the Gaza Strip and remain there for an unspecified length of time, Israeli officials say.
According to Reuters, the plan includes distributing aid, though supplies will not be let in yet.
The Israeli official told the agency that the newly approved offensive plan would move Gaza’s civilian population southward and keep humanitarian aid from falling into Hamas’s hands.
On Sunday, the United Nations rejected what it said was a new plan for aid to be distributed in what it described as Israeli hubs.
Israeli cabinet ministers approved plans for the new offensive on Monday morning, hours after it was announced that tens of thousands of reserve soldiers are being called up.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far failed to achieve his goal of destroying Hamas or returning all the hostages, despite more than a year of brutal war in Gaza.
Palestinian children struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Khan Younis, Gaza. Pic: AP
Officials say the plan will help with these war aims but it would also push hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to southern Gaza, exacerbating an already dire humanitarian crisis.
They said the plan included the “capturing of the strip and the holding of territories”.
It would also try to prevent Hamas from distributing humanitarian aid, which Israel says strengthens the group’s rule in Gaza.
The UN rejected the plan, saying it would leave large parts of the population, including the most vulnerable, without supplies.
It said it “appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic – as part of a military strategy”.
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IDF reservists call for end to war in Gaza
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More than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed since the IDF launched its ground offensive in the densely-populated territory, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
It followed the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and saw around 250 people taken hostage.
A fragile ceasefire that saw a pause in the fighting and the exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners collapsed earlier this year.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to retaliate against the Houthis and their Iranian “masters” after the group launched a missile attack on the country’s main international airport.
A missile fired by the group from Yemen landed near Ben Gurion Airport, causing panic among passengers in the terminal building.
“Attacks by the Houthis emanate from Iran,” Mr Netanyahu wrote on X. “Israel will respond to the Houthi attack against our main airport AND, at a time and place of our choosing, to their Iranian terror masters.”
Israeli police officers investigate the missile crater. Pic: Reuters
The missile impact left a plume of smoke and briefly halted flights and commuter traffic at the airport. Some international carriers have cancelled flights to and from Tel Aviv for several days.
Four people were lightly wounded, paramedic service Magen David Adom said.
Air raid sirens went off across Israel and footage showed passengers yelling and rushing for cover.
The attack came hours before senior Israeli cabinet ministers were set to vote on whether to intensify the country’s military operations in the Gaza Strip, and as the army began calling up thousands of reserves in anticipation of a wider operation in the enclave.
Houthi military spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree said the group fired a hypersonic ballistic missile at the airport.
Iran’s defence minister later told a state TV broadcaster that if the country was attacked by the US or Israel, it would target their bases, interests and forces where necessary.
Israel’s military said several attempts to intercept the missile were unsuccessful.
Air, road and rail traffic were halted after the attack, police said, though it resumed around an hour later.
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Yemen’s Houthis have been firing missiles at Israel since its war with Hamas in Gaza began on 7 October 2023, and while most have been intercepted, some have penetrated the country’s missile defence systems and caused damage.
Israel has previously struck the group in Yemen in retaliation and the US and UK have also launched strikes after the Houthis began attacking international shipping, saying it was in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel’s war with Hamas.
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