IDF says it has no info on deaths of mother and 4-day-old twins in Gaza
Father received news of alleged Israeli strike while at a government office to register births; no outside confirmation home was hit by Israeli forces
The Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday that it had no information on reports from Gaza that a Palestinian man’s wife and newborn twins were killed by Israeli shelling on Tuesday.
In response to a query on the incident, the army said that “the details of the incident as published are currently not known to the IDF.”
“Unlike the Hamas terror organization, the IDF operates against military targets only and employs various measures to reduce harm to civilians,” it added.
Joumana Arafa, a pharmacist, had given birth by Cesarean section over the weekend and announced the twins’ arrival on Facebook.
On Tuesday, her husband Mohammad Abu Al-Qumsan went to register the births at a local government office.
While Abu Al-Qumsan was there, neighbors called to say the fifth-floor apartment where he was sheltering, near central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah, had been bombed, and that his wife, mother-in-law and newborn son and daughter were taken to the city’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
My deepest condolences to Mohammed Abu al-Qumsan on the tragic loss of his wife, Joumana Arafa, and their newborn twins, Aysal and Aser, in Gaza. This unimaginable pain is felt by many, and my heart goes out to you during this devastating time. May their souls rest in peace ???????? pic.twitter.com/N9MklKr561
— Alee علي (@AleeChess) August 13, 2024
“I went inside the hospital with the birth certificates in my hands… and they told me they are in the morgue,” said Abu Al-Qumsan.
“I don’t know what happened,” he said. “I am told it was a shell that hit the house.”
There was no outside confirmation that the home had been hit by Israel. Hamas has at times accused Israel of responsibility for blasts caused by terror operatives’ own munitions.
On Wednesday, with his home obliterated and his family gone, Abu al-Qumsan folded unused pink and yellow baby clothes outside a blue tent in Al-Mawasi, a coastal area that Israel has declared a humanitarian zone.
He said he never got the chance to show his wife that their babies had been legally named: Asser, the boy, and Ayssal, the girl.
“On the same day I obtained their birth certificates, I also had to submit their death certificates, for my children, and also for their mother,” he said. “I did not get the chance to celebrate their arrival. Their clothes are new, they did not wear them.”
Showing a half-full pack of diapers, he continued: “These diapers — we had a hard time finding them. For three months, we have been trying to buy some” in the Gaza Strip, where there has been a dire shortage of basic supplies since the start of the war.
According to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, 115 babies have been born and then killed in the Strip since October 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war.
The Hamas health ministry says more than 39,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far. The toll, which cannot be independently verified, does not distinguish between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 15,000 combatants in battle and some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 attack.
