Pregnancy and Giving Birth are Nightmare for Women of Gaza amid War and Starvation

Gaza Strip- Pregnancy and welcoming a new baby have not been happy occasions anymore for women and families in Gaza since the beginning of Israeli war on Gaza in October 2023.Pregancy and giving birth have become a nightmare for pregnant women and new mothers. They have been left without functioning hospitals, prenatal care, or basic medicines.

Muna is a new mother who just gave birth in Al Awda hospital in Gaza after an exhausting journey of pregnancy amid war conditions, displacement, starvation, thirst, and lack of maternity care. Muna could be lucky as she could reach hospital, but her pregnancy was not easy, while it was full of fears, tiredness, walking under the bombs that continue falling closer to her neighborhood in Gaza. 

Muna felt the baby turn inside her belly as the ground shook, plaster dust drifting from the ceiling. Outside, the sky was lit by the angry orange of explosions. She recalled nights when she pressed her back to the wall, breathing hard, trying to calm the child inside her.

There was no safe place in Gaza. It was difficult for her to reach Al-Awda hospital where she planned to deliver and it was barely functioning, overrun with injured people and the smell of blood. She faced huge challenges despite the rubble of roads, closure of checkpoints and lack of fuel for ambulances.  

Muna described moments of labor in shelters: “I sat on thin mattresses on the cold floor of shelters where hundreds of displaced families are sheltering. There was no privacy. Women crowded around to shield me and gave me some privacy. There is no lights or electricity”.

Muna is a displaced woman suffering from hunger, thirst, lack of clothes and necessities by blocking all humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. She could not find painkillers for her pains when she screamed in pain and there is no sterile tools. Muna says: “there was no food available — we used to eat canned goods, but eventually, even those ran out, and we had nothing to eat. We used to bake on fire, but there was no firewood. We struggled to find paper or cloth to burn. Our house was bombed, and we were targeted more than three times. We had to leave our home each time, and in the end, we ended up staying in a tent”. 

Since the beginning of the war, pregnant women in Gaza lack health care and they can’t access the maternity care centers since the beginning of the war due to continuous bombing, destruction of health facilities, blocking medical supplies and equipment’s .   Muna has suffered from constant sharp, and unbearable headaches. She remembers days before the war when Gaza’s hospitals were functioning, she would have gone in immediately. But that was before the war, before the siege. The war has changed this reality Muna says: “I was never able to get my medication, and there was no transportation available. We used to walk long distances to fetch water and carry it”.

Muna welcomed her newborn in Gaza under conditions of devastation and fear. In overcrowded shelters and ruined hospitals, Muna struggles to keep her baby warm and fed, while the constant threat of airstrikes rattles fragile walls. Incubators sit idle for lack of fuel, and life-saving medicines are scarce or blocked. Even a baby's first cry is drowned out by the roar of bombs. In this war-torn land, the simplest hope—that a child might grow up safe—is a daily act of defiance and love. Muna said: “I am suffering, and my daughter is extremely weak because there is no food. We can’t have one meal for days”. 

Muna is not alone. Across Gaza, there are 50,000 pregnant women who are struggling to access functioning hospitals or maternity health centers, prenatal care, basic medicines, ultrasounds and safe deliveries. Many of them are exposed to C-sections without anesthesia or antibiotics. In some cases, women bleed to death during childbirth. Premature babies are at risk of death in incubators due to blocking fuel need for operating hospitals. Miscarriages skyrocket due to stress, trauma, and starvation. And still, the bombs fall. Still, the blockade chokes the system. Mothers in Gaza fight not just for their own lives but for a child born into blockade, hunger and fear.

Muna as other mothers in Gaza hold her baby despite her weakness and sing to her daughter through tears to encourage her to sleep to overcome hunger. There was no food except a piece of stale bread to share. Water was rationed. Toilets overflowed. Disease spread quickly. She tried to keep her daughters clean with a rag soaked in gray water.

Muna is lucky to survive but her suffering is ongoing as she is worried all the time about the protection of her daughter When the bombs fall on her street. Muna takes all measures to save her daughter by grabbing her daughters by the wrists and running barefoot through the smoke. She didn’t have time to collect clothes, food, or even the birth certificate of her youngest child.

Women, girls, new mothers, pregnant women and elderly women are suffering. The girls whose mothers were killed during the war, they are responsible for caring for their sibling babies. Other elderly women collapse from heat and dehydration while waiting in food lines that never moved.

Loss of children is a great and ever pain beard by mothers in Gaza where they continue having feelings of sadness for the loss of their children and some mothers are forced to bury their children in shallow graves near the shelter.

Muna’s only wish and demand is to stop this war and end this suffering. Muna said “ I wish to return to my usual life and have a home to live in, clothes to wear, and bedding — because everything was damaged and burned”. 

About ActionAid International

ActionAid International is a global federation working with over 41 million people across more than 72 of the world’s poorest countries. We strive for a just and sustainable world where every individual enjoys the right to a dignified life and freedom, a world free from poverty and oppression. We work towards social justice, gender equality, and poverty eradication.

ActionAid Palestine began operations in 2007 to strengthen the resilience of the Palestinian people, believing in their right to freedom, justice, and self-determination. ActionAid Palestine implements several programs engaging Palestinian communities, youth groups, and women, aiming to empower women and youth and enhance their active civic and political participation to understand their rights and engage collectively in addressing rights violations resulting from prolonged occupation. It also seeks to improve their leadership capacities and citizenship practice by holding authorities and other responsible parties accountable.

For more information, please contact:
Riham Jafari
Communications and Advocacy Officer, ActionAid Palestine
Email: Riham.Jafari@actionaid.org