Amid the horrors of war, a Palestinian mother gave birth to quadruplets
Displaced Palestinian Mother Iman al-Masry gave birth prematurely to four children at a hospital in southern Gaza after being forced from her home in the north and walking for five kilometres (about three miles) to escape from bombardment.
![Three of the al-Masry quadruplets belonging to Ammar and Iman al-Masry sleep while sheltering at a school in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on 27 December. Are they still alive? Nobody can be sure in Gaza? [Mahmud Hams/AFP].](https://i0.wp.com/ukcynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Three-of-the-quadruplets-.jpg?resize=770%2C513&ssl=1 "Three of the quadruplets")
Iman al-Masry is simply exhausted after giving birth to quadruplets in a hospital in southern Gaza, miles away from her home in the north of the war-torn Palestinian territory.
In mid-October, days into the Israel-Hamas war, the young woman was forced by the Israeli army to leave her family home in Beit Hanoon on foot with her three other children seeking safety.
They walked five kilometres (three miles) to the Jabalia refugee camp, looking for a means of transport that would take them to Deir el-Balah further south.
Iman was six months pregnant and “the distance was too long”, she said. Amid the horrors of war in Gaza, a woman pregnant with quadruplets had to walk five kilometres in search of safe shelter for her unborn babies.
“It affected my pregnancy,” added the 28-year-old mother, who gave birth by c-section on December 18 to daughters Tia and Lynn and sons Yasser and Mohammed.
![Ammar and Iman al-Masry, displaced Palestinians who fled from their home in Beit Hanoon to escape Israeli bombardment, hold three of her quadruplets while sheltering at a school in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on December 27. Are they still alive? Who can be sure in Gaza? [Mahmud Hams/AFP]](https://i0.wp.com/ukcynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/They-have-six-children.jpg?resize=770%2C513&ssl=1 "They have six children")
But Iman was quickly asked to leave the hospital with the newborns – minus Mohammed who was too fragile to go with them – to make room for other patients of the war.
With Tia, Lynn and Yasser, they went to live in a cramped schoolroom turned shelter in Deir el-Balah along with around 50 other members of their extended family.
“Mohammed weighs only one kilogramme [2.2 pounds]. He cannot survive,” she said of the child she left behind at a hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp.
Lying on a foam mattress in a schoolroom turned shelter for her and her extended family, Iman recounts her journey from hell.
“When I left home, I had only some summer clothes for the children. I thought the war would last a week or two and that afterwards we would go back home,” she said. More than 11 weeks later, her hope of ever going back is shattered.
The Gaza Strip, home to 2.4 million people, lies in ruins from the north to the south. According to UN estimates, the fighting has displaced 1.9 million Palestinians internally.
The conflict erupted when Hamas gunmen attacked southern Israel, resulting in the deaths of about 1,139 people.
“Helpless”
Like other mothers, Iman had hoped to follow tradition and celebrate the birth of her babies by “dousing them with rose water”, she said.
But 10 days on, “we have not even been able to bathe them”, she said, because of the difficulty of finding clean water in the devastated territory, where there is a dire shortage of basic foodstuff, including milk, medicine and hygienic supplies such as diapers.
“Normally, I would change babies’ diapers every two hours. But the situation is difficult and I must be thrifty,” she said, adding that the newborns get only a fresh diaper in the morning and another in the evening.
Her husband Ammar al-Masry, 33, said he is devastated because he cannot provide for his family. :25
“I feel helpless,” he said, surrounded by his six children in the foul-smelling schoolroom. “I fear for my children. I don’t know how to protect them,” he said, adding that he spends most of his days outdoors searching for food.
“Tia [who has jaundice] must be breastfed and my wife needs nutritious food that contains protein. The children need milk and diapers. But I cannot get any of that.”
(Source: Al Jazeera)
