At least six infants have died from hypothermia in the last two weeks in the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of people are living in tent camps and war-damaged buildings during a fragile ceasefire, Palestinian medics said on Tuesday.

Temperatures have plunged in recent days. The coastal territory experiences cold, wet winters, with temperatures dropping below 10° Celsius at night.

Dr Ahmed al-Farah, head of the paediatric department at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, told The Associated Press that it received the body of a 2-month-old girl on Tuesday. He said another two infants were treated for frostbite.

Saeed Saleh, of the Patient’s Friends Hospital in Gaza City, said five infants aged one month or younger have died from the cold over the last two weeks, including a one-month-old who died on Monday. He said another child has been placed on a ventilator. Zaher al-Wahedi, head of the Gaza health ministry’s records department, said it has recorded 15 deaths from hypothermia this winter, all of them children.