Blockade leaves pregnant women in Gaza malnourished and in danger
Like most women who come to the Gaza City hospital for pregnancy checkups, Fatima Arafa's face looks tired, a sign of the malnutrition she suffers from wartime shortages.
The lack of everything from food to clean water has particularly affected pregnant women in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has only slightly eased its blockade on humanitarian aid.
"I'm six months pregnant and I can't even meet the basic needs to carry this pregnancy to term," Arafa told AFP before returning to the makeshift camp where she and her family found refuge after being displaced from their home in the north.
"Dr. Said is going to give me a blood transfusion because there is no food, and when I want to eat or buy food, I can't because there is nothing to eat," said the 34-year-old woman, her face thin and pale.
The humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said its teams in Gaza are witnessing “a sharp and unprecedented increase in acute malnutrition” and that the number of cases at its clinic in Gaza City has almost quadrupled in the past two months.
"Due to widespread malnutrition among pregnant women and the lack of water and sanitation, many babies are born prematurely. Our neonatal intensive care unit is extremely crowded, with four or five babies sharing a single incubator," explained Joanne Perry, an MSF doctor in Gaza.
Fathi al Dahdouh, an obstetrician at Al Helou Hospital, where Arafa undergoes her check-ups, told AFP that miscarriages have soared since the war began in October 2023.
“There are between eight and nine abortions a day [in Gaza City], and we don’t know if this is due to the effects of war and explosive materials or to a lack of nutrition and immunity,” he said.
Dahdouh noted that the war is especially hard on pregnant women and those who have recently given birth.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) warned in May that 17,000 pregnant and lactating women in Gaza would need treatment for acute malnutrition over the next 11 months.
The warning came as Israel imposed a blockade on aid to Gaza in the hope of forcing Hamas to surrender, only allowing aid to enter again in small quantities in late May.
"They arrive here with low blood pressure, weakness, fatigue and exhaustion due to the situation in the country and lack of nutrition," Dahdouh told AFP.
For Arafa, simply attending medical appointments is a challenge.
The area around Al Helou hospital is relatively untouched, but fuel shortages force Arafa to walk to and from his camp in scorching heat.
Once in their shelter – a damaged house with plastic sheeting as walls – Fatima, her husband Zahdi and their four children share a meal provided by a charity.
A stew of pasta and lentils, the only food available to most people in Gaza, cooked over a fire lit on the floor of the house due to a lack of cooking gas.
UN agencies and humanitarian organizations say the volume of aid reaching Gaza remains insufficient and that health workers are working in appalling conditions.
Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which triggered the war, killed 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli data.
At least 57,762 Palestinians, mostly civilians, died as a result of the Israeli offensive in response to the attack, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, a territory ruled by Hamas.
vid-lba/acc/phz/kir/hgs/am
IstoÉ
