Iman al-Masry is simply exhausted after giving birth to quadruplets in a hospital in southern Gaza, miles away from her home in the north of the war-torn Palestinian territory.

Days into the Israel-Hamas war sparked by Hamas's 7 October attack on Israel, the young woman fled the family home in Beit Hanun on foot with her three other children seeking safety.

They walked five kilometers to the Jabalia refugee camp, looking for a means of transport that would take them to Deir al-Balah further south.

Iman was six months pregnant and "the distance was too long," she told Agence France-Presse.

"It affected my pregnancy," added the 28-year-old mother, who gave birth by C-section on 18 December to daughters Tia and Lynn and sons Yasser and Mohammed.

But Iman was quickly asked to leave the hospital with the newborns — minus Mohammed who was too fragile to go with them — to make room for other patients of the war.

Now, with Tia, Lynn and Yasser, they live in a cramped schoolroom turned shelter in Deir al-Balah along with around 50 other members of their extended family.

"Mohammed weighs only one kilogram. He cannot survive," she said of the child she left behind at a hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp.

Lying on a foam mattress in a schoolroom turned shelter for her and her extended family, Iman recounts her journey from hell.