Pregnant women in Gaza suffer from lack of healthcare

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip - More than a year into Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip, pregnant women are suffering from a lack of healthcare and nutrition compounded by the hardships of displacement. 

“Our house in Rafah was destroyed by the war, and we are displaced in al-Mawasi in Khan Younis. I am seven months pregnant and I am suffering from food shortages. My husband and I are unable to provide proper food for ourselves and our children,” Maysoun al-Nafar, a woman who is pregnant displaced, told Rudaw on Monday. 

On October 7 of last year, Palestinian Hamas militants launched a large-scale incursion into southern Israel, killing more than 1,170 people, according to Israeli figures. Israel responded with a massive ongoing offensive in Gaza, killing at least 42,227 people, mostly civilians, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

“Regarding my pregnancy, the doctors told me that I need proper nutrition and sufficient medicine, and that is difficult and is not available to us,” Nafar lamented.

According to the Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, 71 percent of Gaza’s population is currently suffering from acute hunger and 90 percent of the total population does not have enough food. 

Islam Anaba, a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy, stressed that a lack of nutrition has severely deteriorated her health.

“Since the beginning of my pregnancy, I have not had enough healthy food. I was sleeping and unable to move or serve my children or husband like I should,” she said. 

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has said that 95 percent of women in Gaza suffer severe nutritional deficiencies.