The BBCSeela was less than three weeks old when her mother Nariman realized that she was not moving.
“I woke up in the morning and told my husband that the baby hadn't moved for a while. He uncovered her face and found her bruised, biting her tongue, with blood coming out of her mouth,” says Nariman al-Najmeh.
In their tent on the beach in southern Gaza, Nariman sits with her husband, Mahmoud Fasih, and their two young children, Rayan, who is four, and Nihad, who is two and a half.
The family says they were displaced more than 10 times during the 14-month war.
“My husband is a fisherman, we are from the north and we were left with nothing, but we did it for our children,” Nariman said in an interview with a freelance cameraman working with the BBC. Israel prevents international media from entering and working freely on the ground in Gaza.
“When I was pregnant, I was thinking about how I was going to get clothes for the baby. I was very worried because my husband doesn't have a job.”
During her 20-day life, Sila's home was the small and overcrowded encampment in the al-Mawasi “humanitarian zone,” where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced from elsewhere in the territory were ordered to move by the Israeli military.
The area suffers from poor infrastructure and sanitation, as well as flooding caused by rain and waves from the Mediterranean Sea.
“The cold is cruel and cruel. All night, because of the cold, we huddle together, huddle together,” says Sila's father, Mahmoud.
“Our life is hell. It is hell because of the effects of the war, my family was tortured and our situation is unbearable.'
Despite telling civilians to head for the area, the Israeli army has repeatedly struck al-Mawasi during its campaign against Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza.
Silla's death was not from a bombing – but it was still caused by the punitive conditions that war imposes on civilians.
She was one of six newborns to die of hypothermia in a two-week period in Gaza – where overnight temperatures fell to 7C (45F) – according to local health authorities, who also reported that many thousands of tents had been damaged by the weather .
Nariman says Silla was born in a British field hospital set up in the Khan Younis area.
“After I gave birth… I started thinking about how to provide her with milk, diapers. Everything I got, I got very hard.”
“I never thought I would give birth living in a tent, in such cold and freezing conditions, with water dripping on us. Water was leaking into the tent, pouring over us. Sometimes we had to run to escape the water – for the sake of the baby,” says Nariman.
Still, Cilla was born without complications.
“Her health was good, thank God. Suddenly it started getting affected by the cold,” says Nariman. “I noticed he sneezed and seemed to catch a cold, but I never expected him to die from it.”
Sila was admitted last Wednesday to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, where Dr. Ahmad al-Fara, director of the pediatric department, said she suffered from “severe hypothermia leading to cessation of vital signs, cardiac arrest and ultimately death.” .
“(The previous day) two cases were also brought in: one was a three-day-old baby and the other was less than a month old. Both cases involved severe hypothermia leading to death,” says Dr. Farah.
Babies have an underdeveloped mechanism for maintaining their own body temperature and can easily develop hypothermia in cold environments. Premature babies are particularly vulnerable and Dr Farah says medics in Gaza have seen an increase in premature births during the war.
Mothers also suffer from malnutrition, leaving them unable to adequately breastfeed their babies. There is also a shortage of infant formula due to restrictions on humanitarian aid supplies, according to Dr Farah.
Then on Sunday another, tragic case.
Outside Al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza, a second local BBC cameraman met Yehia al-Batran, who could not contain his grief as he carried his dead son, Jumaa. Like Silas, he too was only 20 days old and turned blue from the cold.
“Touch him with your hand, he is frozen,” Yehia said. “All eight of us, we don't have four blankets between us. What can I do? I see my children dying before my eyes.”
“These preventable deaths reveal the desperate and worsening conditions facing families and children in Gaza,” UNICEF Regional Director Edward Beigbeder said in a statement on Thursday.
“With temperatures expected to drop further in the coming days, it is tragically predictable that more children's lives will be lost in the inhumane conditions they are subjected to.”
To the sound of Israeli drones flying ahead, Sila's father Mahmoud carried her lifeless body from Nasser Hospital to a makeshift cemetery in Khan Younis. There he dug a small grave in the sand.
After putting Sila to rest, Mahmud consoled Nariman.
“Her siblings are sick, exhausted. We are all sick. Our chests hurt and we have colds from the cold and rain,” says Nariman. “If we don't die of the war, we will die of the cold.”
