Newborn twins were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza while their father was away at a local government office to register their births. The twins, Asser and Ayssel, a boy and a girl, were just four days old when their father, Mohammed Abu al-Qumsan, went to collect their birth certificates.
Tragically, while he was away, neighbors informed him that their home in Deir al Balah had been bombed. The strike claimed the lives of his wife and the twins’ grandmother as well.
“I don’t know what happened,” al-Qumsan said. “I am told it was a shell that hit the house.” He added, “I didn’t even have the time to celebrate them.”
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry reports that 115 infants have been born and subsequently killed during the ongoing conflict. According to the Associated Press, the family had complied with an order to evacuate Gaza City in the early weeks of the Israel-Gaza war, seeking refuge in a central part of the strip, as instructed by the Israeli military.
The BBC has reached out to the Israeli military for comment on the strike but has not yet received a response. Israel maintains that it aims to avoid civilian casualties and attributes such deaths to Hamas operating within densely populated residential areas, including using civilian buildings as shields. However, Israeli officials rarely comment on specific strikes.
In recent weeks, several shelters in Gaza have been attacked. On Saturday, an Israeli airstrike on a school building sheltering displaced Palestinians in Gaza City killed more than 70 people, according to the director of a hospital who spoke to the BBC. An Israeli military spokesperson claimed the school “served as an active Hamas and Islamic Jihad military facility,” a charge that Hamas has denied. Israel disputed the death toll, and the BBC was unable to independently verify the figures provided by either side.
The conflict escalated after Hamas-led gunmen launched an attack on Israel on October 7, killing approximately 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage. This attack prompted a large-scale Israeli military offensive on Gaza, leading to the current war. As of now, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry reports that more than 39,790 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli campaign.
