Will there be a future for newborns in Gaza?
By Bilal Irfana, Abdallah Abu Shammalae, Khaled Salehd
October 23, 2024
The ongoing Israeli military assault on Gaza has led to an alarming humanitarian catastrophe, whereby the onset of famine is coupled with a deterioration of maternal health services, severely impacting the wellbeing of pregnant women and of children. The near-total collapse of the health-care infrastructure, coupled with the lack of access to essential medical services, has resulted in a tragic surge in preventable maternal and neonatal deaths.1 As advocates in the medical sector, it is our duty to bring attention to these harrowing cases and call for immediate international intervention.
Our teams, comprising international physicians working in tandem with local Palestinian health-care workers, have witnessed first-hand the collapse of Gaza’s health-care infrastructure during medical missions. People are being left to navigate an impossible situation: the once-celebratory event of childbirth has now become a matter of survival. Prenatal care is virtually non-existent in Gaza.2 The rise in premature labour is staggering, often triggered by the chronic stress of displacement, malnutrition, and the trauma of witnessing air strikes.3 As hospitals struggle to keep up with mass casualties, maternity wards are becoming non-functional.1,3 In some cases, women have had to deliver babies outside, in unsanitary conditions, without the assistance of midwives or doctors.4
This reproductive violence is not just a consequence of the military assault—it is a deliberate outcome of policies that restrict access to health care.5 The targeting of maternity hospitals and the blockade that limits essential medical supplies, such as anaesthetics and maternity kits, from entering Gaza have turned pregnancy into a life-threatening condition for thousands of women.6–8
Our colleagues in Gaza, local physicians who face the horrors of this large-scale violence daily, report an unprecedented rise in maternal deaths, miscarriages, and stillbirths.9 The malnutrition that many pregnant women endure only exacerbates these outcomes. Without access to proper nutrition or health care, they are forced to carry pregnancies through conditions unfathomable to the human conscience. This blockade, now in its second decade, and ever-tightened over the last few months, has compounded the suffering, with dire implications for future generations. The prevention of births within Gaza is not merely collateral damage—it is a violation of international law, a grim reminder of the structural violence imposed on this population.10
What is happening in Gaza is a profound moral failure of the international community, which has allowed these atrocities to persist unchecked. Humanitarian principles dictate that civilians, particularly children and pregnant women, must be protected. Yet, every day, Gaza’s mothers are denied their most basic right—the ability to give birth in safety and dignity. The women of Gaza are not just statistics; they are mothers who mourn the loss of children they will never know. They are survivors of a crime that continues to strip them of their humanity. The world cannot remain silent any longer. The time for action is now—to restore access to health care, to protect women and children, and to uphold the sanctity of life.
We declare…
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