It was supposed to be a joyful affirmation of new life in Gaza’s ruins.
Instead, as Mohamed Abu Al-Qomasan waited to collect the birth certificates of his days-old twins, he learned the newborns and his wife had been killed in what local officials said was an Israeli strike.
Holding up the birth certificates of Ayssel and Asser with tears in his eyes, he said how he had been racing to retrieve the precious documents Tuesday when he received the gut-wrenching call.
"Someone told me, 'the apartment you were living in was shelled,'" Abu Al-Qomasan told NBC News' crew on the ground in Gaza.
He was speaking from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, where he and his family had sought shelter in an apartment building during Israel's monthslong military offensive in the Palestinian enclave.
Abu Al-Qomasan said he was initially only told that his wife and children were at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
But there, the worst awaited him: That the children he and his wife had welcomed to the world just four days ago had been killed, along with their mother, Joumana Arafa, and the twins' maternal grandmother.
In video shared on social media, the father can be seen wailing as he falls into the arms of a companion, still gripping the twins' birth certificates as others gather around, trying to console him.
Later that day, he could be seen mourning with loved ones over the covered bodies of his family in video captured by NBC News' crew.
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"I swear they preceded you to heaven," one man can be heard telling the grieving father. "Today we buried a woman and her husband."
Arafa, a pharmacist, had given birth to the twins by cesarean section Saturday, The Associated Press reported.
Al-Qomasan told NBC News that he and his wife had done everything they could to stay safe during Israel's offensive in hopes of seeing their twins born safely.
On a Facebook page appearing to belong to Arafa, the last post, dated Aug. 10, announces the arrival of her newborn twins with heart emojis around their names.
Since Tuesday, the post has been shared more than 21,000 times with friends of the family and social media users mourning their deaths.
The Gaza Civil Defense Agency said in a statement that Israeli shelling had hit a group of apartment buildings in the area Tuesday.
The Israel Defense Forces told NBC News in a statement Wednesday that the "details of the incident as published are not currently known to the IDF."
The IDF reiterated past statements that it "only military objectives and employs various measures to minimize harm to civilians."
In a separate public statement Wednesday, the IDF said its troops continued operations in central and southern Gaza, with its aircraft striking more than 40 targets over the past day.
Almost 40,000 people, including thousands of children, have been killed in Israel's monthslong military offensive in the Gaza Strip, according to local health officials. The Health Ministry in Gaza has said that at least 115 newborns have been killed since the war began.
Israel has been accused in the International Court of Justice of genocidal acts in its deadly offensive, which it launched in the wake of Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attack, in which some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 others taken hostage, marking a major escalation in a decadeslong conflict. Both Israel and the United States have rejected accusations of genocide in the Gaza offensive.
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