GENEVA: The United Nations said on Friday that the conditions for babies born in Gaza have been described as “beyond belief” since the conflict began over three months ago.
UNICEF spokeswoman Tess Ingram, who recently visited the Gaza Strip, recounted harrowing experiences, including mothers bleeding to death and a nurse performing emergency caesareans on deceased women.
According to UNICEF, nearly 20,000 babies have been born since the conflict started on October 7. Ingram highlighted the alarming rate of a baby being born into the war every 10 minutes, saying that becoming a mother in Gaza has become a tragic experience. She called for urgent international action, stating that witnessing newborns suffer and mothers dying should be a cause for collective concern.
In response to Hamas’s October 7 attack to liberate Palestinian territory, Israel launched counter ground and air offensive that led to the deaths of at least 24,762 Palestinians, with around 70 percent being women, children, figures from the Hamas-run health ministry show.
UNICEF Sounds Alarm on Gaza
Ingram shared heartbreaking stories of women facing unimaginable challenges in the chaos, such as Mashael, who, pregnant when her house was hit, is still waiting for medical care. She also mentioned nurse Webda, who performed emergency caesareans on six deceased women in the past eight weeks.
Describing the situation for pregnant women and newborns in Gaza as “beyond belief,” Ingram stressed the need for intensified and immediate actions. She expressed concern about the unknown infant mortality rate in Gaza but highlighted the clear impact of the humanitarian crisis on children, both from the crisis itself and the conflict’s direct consequences.
Ingram noted that the Emirati Hospital in Rafah is overwhelmed, leading to challenges such as discharging mothers within three hours of a caesarean, putting them at risk. Pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, and infants are living in inhumane conditions, including makeshift shelters, with poor nutrition and unsafe water, putting approximately 135,000 children under two at risk of severe malnutrition.
Calling for a humanitarian ceasefire, Ingram said that humanity cannot allow the current conditions to persist, stating that mothers and newborns urgently need intervention.
