Israel’s blockade pushes Gaza’s weakest to the brink, with pregnant women and the elderly among the most at risk.
By Maha Hussaini, Reposted from Middle East Eye, September 02, 2025
Habib Qeshta and his wife Nour, were overjoyed recently to learn they were expecting a baby boy.
Already parents to a daughter born before the Israeli genocide in Gaza, the Palestinian couple had hoped a son might bring some light to their dark days under relentless bombardment.
“We were overjoyed to learn it was a boy,” said Qeshta, 27, speaking to Middle East Eye.
But their joy was short-lived.
“A week later, my wife began experiencing unusual pain. She sensed something was wrong, so we went for another check-up,” he recalled.
“That’s when the doctor told us the fetus had died due to malnutrition.”
Nour had carried the pregnancy for four months under heavy Israeli air strikes near their home.
For months, she barely ate any nutritious meals due to the ongoing Israeli-imposed famine in Gaza.
“All we have are canned beans, duqqa (local spices usually eaten with bread), and thyme. Sometimes we don’t even have bread,” Qeshta said.
“For a pregnant woman, this can’t be considered nutrition.”
Since Israel imposed a total closure of Gaza’s borders on 2 March, nearly two million people in the besieged enclave have entered a new and devastating phase of the war. Wheat flour has become a luxury item, and hundreds have died from hunger and malnutrition.
Although the borders were partially reopened for some goods and international aid, most residents remain unable to access food, either due to soaring prices, looting of aid trucks, or the dangers of reaching hazardous aid distribution points.
With Gaza’s hospitals pushed to the brink of collapse by Israeli bombardments and the ongoing siege, pregnant women are often forced to rely on makeshift medical points for basic check-ups, as hospitals are overwhelmed with the wounded.
“She went to a medical point for tests, and the doctor told her there was no heartbeat – the foetus had died,” Qeshta continued.
“The doctor explained that the baby died from malnutrition. What his mother had been eating lacked adequate nutrition, and the foetus didn’t get what he needed to survive.”
Qeshta’s story is far from isolated.
In the first half of 2025, the Palestinian Ministry of Health recorded at least 2,500 miscarriages and neonatal deaths.
At Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, doctors reported that the number of miscarriages in January and February was double that of the same period in 2023.
Healthcare professionals attribute these miscarriages largely to malnutrition, severe vitamin deficiencies, the collapse of proper medical services, and the constant displacement, bombardment, and fear endured by pregnant women throughout their pregnancies.
‘My body is collapsing’
The Israeli-imposed famine in Gaza has led to 361 deaths from malnutrition, including 139 children, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The most vulnerable have been hardest hit, including pregnant women, children, the sick, and the elderly.
Living in a makeshift tent of cloth and nylon west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, 85-year-old Salim Asfour has already lost some 35 kilograms and now struggles to even stand.
The father of six was displaced from his home in Abassan, east of Khan Younis, and has survived on meagre canned food for the past year.
“My body is collapsing slowly. I never imagined I would spend the last years of my life like this,” he told MEE.
“I used to be active and free of any illnesses. Today, I am extremely frail, barely able to stand. I suffer from severe weakness in my eyesight and constant high blood pressure because of the canned food, which, if we find it, feels like we have found a treasure.”
Even after Israel partially allowed some aid and goods into Gaza, Asfour’s body continued to deteriorate, showing no sign of recovery.
“After they allowed some food in, we could eat rice, bread, and some beans,” he said.
“But my body is still very weak. There are still no eggs, no meat, no chicken, no protein. The goods coming in are too expensive to afford, and the amount is not sufficient.”
Ahead of its planned military offensive to seize Gaza City, the Israeli military announced it will no longer pause attacks to allow aid deliveries in the war-torn city.
The decision follows Israel’s declaration of Gaza City as a “combat zone” and its plans to slow or halt humanitarian aid to the northern parts of the Strip, aiming to force residents to flee southward.
But even though residents of Gaza City can still travel south to access aid through notorious US-backed distribution points, Asfour is among many Palestinians unable to reach the limited international assistance Israel permits into Gaza.
“I am an old man. I cannot run among tens of thousands of hungry people under bullets and shelling. I cannot carry anything, nor can I walk several kilometres to reach distribution points,” he added.
“Because of this, there were times when I went five consecutive days without eating bread, surviving only on a little lentil soup thinned with water.”
When the family manages to secure a small amount of food, they reserve it for the children.
“My grandchildren cannot understand why food is so scarce and why supplies are no longer available as before. They won’t understand when we tell them that their portion for the day is only a small piece of bread,” Asfour said.
“Hunger has exhausted us all. I believe that if I do not die from bombing, I will die of starvation or even heartbreak over what has become of us.”
Maha Hussaini is an award-winning journalist and human rights activist based in Gaza.
What it’s like to be a midwife in Gaza during Israel’s genocide
Midwives in Gaza are on the front lines fighting against extermination, trying to save this generation and the next, as the Israeli-imposed famine causes a birthing crisis in the Strip.
The ongoing Israeli war and blockade of food and humanitarian aid in Gaza have left pregnancy fraught with danger in the Strip, not only for mothers-to-be, but also for the midwives struggling to protect them.
“I work to support pregnant women in this makeshift hospital,” said Renad Salem, a 24-year-old midwife working at a UK-Med maternity facility. “But it feels like I’m the one in desperate need of support.”
Living in al-Shati camp in the north and serving in al-Mawasi Khan Younis in the south, Salem’s journey to work is a struggle in and of itself. She walks several kilometers before catching a ride at the al-Nabulsi roundabout in northern Gaza, which takes her to Tabet al-Nuweiri in Nuseirat in central Gaza. From there, a bus takes her to the hospital. “On July 17, I fell from a tuk-tuk — a three-wheeled rickshaw — while heading south and was injured because of the damaged road,” Salem recalled.
Perpetually short on food, Renad often works through headaches and dizziness brought on by hunger. “If we’re lucky and my family gets flour, I bring a single piece of bread to eat during a 24-hour shift,” she continued. “But there are days when I don’t have anything at all.”
Salem says that pregnant women arriving in their final month “look like walking skeletons,” explaining that the babies they give birth to are often just as fragile.
Power outages add another layer of danger. “During my last shift, the electricity cut out, plunging the delivery room into total darkness,” Salem said. “We had no choice but to use our phone flashlights to deliver the baby.”
Israeli shelling has left many women arriving at obstetric emergency departments with shrapnel wounds breaching their abdomens, striking both mothers and fetuses. In most cases, neither survives, but in other rare moments, life clings on.
“During one shift, I absorbed how life and death can coexist,” Salem said. “A woman, 34 weeks pregnant, was brought to us from Nasser Medical Complex. Her abdomen was bleeding after shrapnel tore through her body. Together with the surgeons, we performed an emergency cesarean. The baby was delivered safely, and, unexpectedly, both mother and child lived.”
But postnatal support in Gaza is now virtually nonexistent. “Our hospital used to provide new mothers with baby kits and basic items, but that’s impossible now due to the Israeli closure of the crossings,” Salem said.
Childbirth without painkillers
Childbirth without anesthesia, however, is where pregnancy becomes a nightmare. Pain medications in Gaza are now virtually nonexistent, and there are no substitutes. Oxytocin, vital for labor and postpartum recovery, is scarce, along with common drugs such as diclofenac, pethidine, and significant antibiotics like Rocephin, Cefazolin, and Zinnat.
Shaimaa Barakat, a midwife with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), has seen maternal healthcare fall apart in person. In northern Gaza, she worked through constant bombings, delivered babies in emergencies, cared for pregnant women overnight, and helped new mothers with almost no resources.
Before joining MSF, Barakat served with Project HOPE at the al-Sahaba Medical Complex, where the needs of mothers and newborns already far exceeded the available supplies.
When MSF’s maternity field hospital relocated to southern Gaza, Barakat could no longer make the dangerous journey north on a daily basis, so she decided to move there. The separation from her family was agonizing.
“There were days when I worked for hours in one place, while my husband and children were somewhere else under the airstrikes,” she recalled.
For mothers in the north, the situation is catastrophic. Pregnant women, new mothers, and infants receive almost no medical care. “We all know childbirth is one of the most painful experiences a woman endures,” Barakat told Mondoweiss. “Now imagine going through it without any assistance, without any pain relief, without anything to ease the suffering.”
Cesarean sections are being rationed out of desperation, with doctors forced to prioritize which women are given anesthesia.
Amidst this worsening crisis, the condition of newborns has deteriorated precipitously in the past few months due to the total obliteration of postnatal care infrastructures in Gaza. Israeli bombardment has destroyed nearly 80 percent of Gaza’s incubators, leaving babies without support. “Everyone knew there were no functioning incubators,” Barakat explained. “Any baby born with complications had almost no chance of survival.”
Famine leads to early births and miscarriages
The Ministry of Health in Gaza reported a catastrophic impact on the health of mothers and newborns in the first six months of 2025. Over 2,600 women had experienced an increase in miscarriages, and 220 pregnancy-related deaths occurred before childbirth. Premature births and low birth weight cases also increased: at least 2,500 infants were admitted to neonatal intensive care units, over 1,460 babies were born prematurely, and over 1,600 babies were underweight.
These famine conditions have fueled the crisis of pregnancy and childbirth in the Strip. “Expectant mothers need a healthy diet, but here they can barely find food,” Barakat explained. “When Israeli-imposed starvation struck the north at the beginning of 2024, miscarriages surged.”
Many women lost their pregnancies because they could not reach medical care in time. With bombs falling day and night, transportation during labor was often impossible. “I remember one woman who finally made it to us,” Barakat continued. “But she arrived carrying her unborn baby, the child she had long dreamed of meeting, already lifeless. She had spent the entire night searching for transport, but the Israeli airstrikes made it impossible.”
Today, the situation is far worse than in 2024. Earlier last month, the highest famine monitoring body in the world, the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Classification (IPC), officially declared famine in Gaza, stating that over 500,000 people in the Strip, roughly a quarter of the population, were either close to or had already reached catastrophic levels of famine (IPC Phase 5). The number is expected to rise to over a third of the population by the end of September, while 58% of the population is predicted to enter “emergency” levels of severe malnutrition (IPC Phase 4).
These harrowing conditions — in addition to the constant exposure to explosions that shock women’s bodies, the physical strain of hauling heavy water containers, the cooking over open fires due to gas shortages, and the psychological distress from the loss of loved ones — are all leading women to give birth prematurely.
“Every time I was at the hospital, I could almost be certain I would be dealing with multiple premature births,” Barakat recounted.
“One story that touched me was when a woman gave birth to a little girl and named her Amal, which means hope. When I asked her why she chose that name, she replied, ‘Because she is my last hope in this life after I lost all my children,’” Barakat added.
For babies in Gaza, survival doesn’t end with childbirth. Due to aid shortages, parents are unable to obtain even the most basic necessities, like food, clean water, and baby formula. Many families are compelled to raise newborns in makeshift shelters, and mothers lack access to sufficient nutrition, medical care, and protection before, during, and following childbirth.
According to UNFPA and Gaza’s Health Ministry, more than 50,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women face malnutrition as Israel’s blockade continues to choke off aid. The consequences won’t only endanger children today but will also reverberate for generations.
The British Red Cross cautions that long-term, frequently irreversible harm in children, such as stunted growth, impaired brain development, and organ dysfunction, can result from chronic malnutrition. Inadequate nutrition weakens immunity, increasing susceptibility to disease and infection in expectant mothers, new mothers, and infants.
Without immediate humanitarian assistance, Gaza faces the threat of losing both this generation and the next.
Wesam Abo Marq is a reporter for Mondoweiss.
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