An estimated 50,000 women in Gaza are pregnant, and about 130 give birth every day. Palestinian women and girls are at high risk of pregnancy complications and violence as Israel’s air and ground assault continues to squeeze health services in Gaza, according to the UN’s top reproductive health official in the occupied territory. Many of Gaza’s health facilities have been destroyed since the Israel-Hamas conflict escalated in October 2023.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 19 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals cannot be used and 17 are partially functional, though many lack medical supplies and are ill-equipped to care for patients. “Even what we are calling ‘functioning’ is barely functioning,” said Penninah Kyoyagala, head of the Gaza office for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the UN’s sexual health and reproductive rights agency. The death toll in Gaza is nearing 44,000, and the hundreds of thousands of people who have fled their homes are grappling with , outbreaks of , and other health issues.
The WHO recently finished a polio vaccination campaign for children there after the virus was detected in sewage over the summer. “The conditions on the ground are harrowing,” Kyoyagala, who previously did humanitarian work in Uganda and Afghanistan, told Euronews Health. The situation can be even more difficult for the estimated 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza.
That’s who UNFPA tries to reach. In central Gaza, the group has six mobile maternit.
