The key facts

  • Two-month-old Habiba Zanoun and seven-month-old Asil Abu Sukhaiban suffered severe burns and died on Saturday morning in intensive care
  • The fire broke out during cooking over an open fire due to a gas shortage
  • According to OCHA, cooking inside tents is one of the main causes of fires

Two infants die in tent camp fire

On Friday afternoon, in the al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, a fire broke out in a tent where relatives had gathered. Two infants were affected: two-month-old Habiba Mohammed Zanoun and seven-month-old Asil Abu Sukhaiban — their names were released by the Nasser Medical Complex, where the children were admitted to intensive care with severe burns. Both girls died on Saturday morning. This was reported by the Turkish news agency Anadolu.

Fire during food preparation

According to the agency's sources, the fire started while food was being cooked inside the tent. Due to an acute shortage of household gas and basic goods under the blockade, families who lost their homes are forced to cook over open fires. Asil's mother rushed to save her daughter and was burned herself; she was also hospitalized. The girls' grandmother, who did not give her name, told the agency that Habiba died on the very day she was supposed to receive her routine two-month vaccinations. 'Why is all this happening to us? Every day there are accidents, bombings and fires, and people die in all sorts of ways,' Anadolu quotes her as saying.

Tents made of flammable materials

The agency's sources note that this fire was one of three recorded the same day in tents for displaced people in the central and southern parts of the Strip. The problem is systemic: the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned back in June that cooking inside tents is one of the main causes of fires, and that blankets, old fabric, cardboard and plastic sheeting used to reinforce shelters accelerate the spread of fire. OCHA also reported that on August 26 and September 2, Israeli authorities did not allow through a previously agreed shipment via the Egyptian corridor containing 36,960 boards of lumber and 660 emergency shelter kits. According to the media office of the Gaza authorities, cited by the agency, more than 800,000 displaced Palestinians live in tents unfit for habitation, and of the 270,000 tents, 162,000 require immediate replacement.