“The Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza has become a besieged war zone. Its neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), the last remaining in the north, has reportedly been damaged in heavy attacks in recent days.

“Access to the hospital is incredibly difficult but reports indicate that children who were treated there have been killed and injured in these attacks and its oxygen and water supplies have been damaged, disrupting critical care for the few still clinging to life inside.

“Any newborn baby fighting to sustain its breaths from inside a hospital incubator is entirely defenceless and entirely reliant on specialist medical care and equipment to survive.

“In the Gaza Strip, at least 4,000 babies are estimated to have been cut off from lifesaving newborn care in the past year because of sustained attacks on the hospitals earnestly trying to keep them alive, because electricity supply has been cut off and because the little fuel delivered to power hospitals is woefully inadequate. This has been especially deadly in the northern parts of the Gaza Strip.