The perils of pregnancy in Gaza war

Palestinian territories – Forced to flee her home by Israeli bombardment, Asmaa Ahmed gave birth in the middle of the night in a Gaza City school that had no electricity.

The doctor arrived just in time, working by the light of a cellphone, and clamping the umbilical cord with whatever medical staff could find.

“I was very, very afraid to lose the baby,” 31-year-old Ahmed told AFP, recounting how her son Faraj came into the world four months ago.

Baraa Jaber, the nurse who assisted in the delivery, said she was scared, too. “It was very late and at this time the occupation [Israel] could bomb anyone moving in the streets,” she said.

Ahead of International Women’s Day tomorrow, aid workers and medics said Gaza’s around 52 000 pregnant women – a World Health Organisation estimate – are among those endangered by the collapse of the health system amid the ongoing war.

And their troubles don’t end with a successful delivery.

New mothers confront the stark challenge of keeping infants alive in the besieged territory bereft of basics like food and water, to say nothing of heated tables for neonates and incubators.

The fast-deteriorating conditions have struck fear into the hearts of pregnant women like 21-year-old Malak Shabat, who has sought refuge in the southern Gaza city of Rafah after moving several times to escape Israeli air strikes.

“I’m so afraid of giving birth,” said Shabat, whose due date is fast approaching.

The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented 7 October attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of around 1 160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign intended to destroy Hamas has killed at least 30 631 people – mostly women and children – according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

The health system has been devastated, with the United Nations reporting last month that there were no fully functioning hospitals left, and just 12 of 36 working at some capacity.

Restrictions that the UN blames on the Israeli military mean that most aid convoys are halted. The UN Population Fund says it has 62 palettes of material to assist childbirth blocked outside Rafah on the border with Egypt.

There are only five rooms dedicated to childbirth at the Emirati maternity hospital in Rafah, a city where nearly 1.5 million Palestinians have sought refuge.

Among them is Samah alHelou, who arrived in Rafah in the last month of her pregnancy but struggled to get the care she needed. –