STORY: A displaced Gazan father left his newborn twins with his wife to collect their birth certificates.

Only to find out that while he was gone, they were all killed in an Israeli airstrike.

Mohammed Abu al-Qumsan's baby boy and girl, Asser and Ayssel, were born on Saturday (August 10).

And they were killed on Tuesday (August 13) along with their mother and grandmother.

They were sheltering in an apartment after fleeing northern Gaza.

"I went to get the birth certificates for the children, my wife gave birth the day before yesterday. I hadn't yet celebrate them. And she had just delivered by caesarean section, she was still tired, she wasn't able to get up or move much."

Abu al-Qumsan said he was told a tank shell hit the apartment...

As he held the laminated birth certificates in the morgue at a Deir al-Balah hospital.

He and others carried the twins who were wrapped in white shrouds.

It's a common sight in Gaza, where Israel's land and air campaign has put hundreds of thousands of people regularly on the move in search of shelter.

Ten months after the Gaza war erupted, air strikes, artillery shells...

Along with severe shortages of medicine, food and clean water have brought one of the world's most densely populated places to its knees.

Hospital doctor Khalil al-Daqran.

"Today, it was registered in history that the occupation army targets newborn children who are barely four days old, twins along with their mother and grandmother - those have been erased from the civil registry. We condemn such criminal acts against civilians. The series of massacres continues, as more than 12 martyrs arrived to al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital."

Israel says it goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties and accuses arch-foe Hamas of using human shields - charges the militants deny.

Israel vowed to eradicate Hamas after its fighters killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostage in an October 7 attack, according to Israeli tallies.

Gaza health authorities say that around 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's retaliatory offensive since then.