Iman Al Masri is exhausted. Next to her, on an old, used mattress, sleep three of her four premature babies. After a grueling journey to the southern Gaza Strip, the young woman delivered her quadruplets by caesarean section.

The mother and newborns, Yasser, Tia and Lynn, live in a classroom in a school in Deir el-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, surrounded by 50 members of their extended family.

The fourth baby, Mohammad, is under medical observation at a hospital in the Nuseirat camp, seven kilometers to the north.

Like the 1.9 million displaced Palestinians, Iman Al Masri was forced to flee to escape the fighting between the Israeli army and Hamas. She left her home in Beit Hanoun, in the north, on the 5th day of the war, believing that she would return soon.

“I only brought some summer clothes for the children. I thought the war would last a week or two and then we would go home,” says the 29-year-old mother.

She was six months pregnant when she set out on foot with her three other young children to go to the Jambaliya refugee camp, 5 kilometers from her home. There he found a means of transport to reach Deir el-Balach. “The distance tired me and affected my pregnancy. I went to the doctor and he said there were signs of premature labor. They gave me injections to stabilize me,” he said.

Eight months into the pregnancy, the doctors decided she couldn’t wait any longer. She gave birth by caesarean section to the quadruplets, on December 18, in the middle of the war. He didn’t even have time to recover. As there were no beds in the hospitals, she was forced to leave, leaving behind her newborn baby boy Mohammad who needs medical attention. “His condition is unstable. It weighs just one kilogram. He may not survive. Thank God, the three other babies are healthy,” Iman said.

The 29-year-old has not seen Mohammad again since his birth. “I’m worried about him, but the route is dangerous to visit him,” she explained. A friend of her husband, who resides in Nuseirat, goes and sees the child.

Her dream of the big celebration she would organize for the birth of her babies was shattered by the war. He imagined he would get along with rose water “according to our custom.” But, ten days after their birth, he has not even managed to bathe them. Because she doesn’t eat well, she doesn’t have enough milk to feed the babies. And he doesn’t even have enough diapers. “I use them sparingly. Normally, they should be changed every two hours, but the situation is difficult, I only change them in the morning and in the evening.”

Her husband, Amar Al Masri, says he doesn’t know what to do to comfort his family. “I feel powerless,” admits the 33-year-old father. “I fear for my children’s lives, I don’t know how to protect them,” she said.

One of his premature babies, Tia, is jaundiced and doctors fear she may develop neurological problems. “She needs to breastfeed to improve her condition and my wife needs protein food but I can’t offer it to her. My children need milk and diapers,” explained the father. Amar spends his days outside, trying to find “anything” to feed his children and, at the same time, not meet their gaze “so he doesn’t feel guilty.”