In the coming weeks, it is expected United nations About 5,500 women give birth in Gaza, where doctors in hospitals suffering from the ravages of war deliver women without anesthesia or with simple anesthesia, and sometimes by the light of mobile phones.
With the second month of conflict between Israel and Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist movement, the United Nations Population Fund is calling for a humanitarian ceasefire and an increase in convoys of food, fuel, water and other much-needed aid to the Strip.
The suffering of 5,500 pregnant women in Gaza
In an interview published by her website United Nations NewsRegional Director for Arab Countries at the Sexual and Reproductive Health Agency, Laila Bakr, said she fears for the fate of new mothers and their children amid the “loss of complete humanity” in Gaza.
She explained that 2.2 million people, including 50,000 pregnant women, are trapped for an entire month, and 5,500 women are expected to give birth during the next few weeks. As for the 160 women who gave birth during the past month, their lives and the lives of their children are still in danger.
The United Nations agency concerned with sexual and reproductive health estimated that “about 50,000 pregnant women in the Gaza Strip face great challenges amid the siege, especially their inability to obtain health services.”
The United Nations Population Fund agency reported in recent figures that “5,500 women are expected to give birth in Gaza this November,” noting that these women “lack access to safe childbirth services, while stocks of life-saving supplies are running out.”
Baker said UNFPA staff are providing emergency health and safe delivery supplies to pregnant mothers “when we can reach them.”
The suffering of pregnant women in Gaza deepens, according to Bakr, with the absence of a safe haven from bombing and the ability to obtain food and water, like the rest of the civilians in the Strip.
The UN official spoke that pregnant Palestinian women fleeing the bombing suffer from severe anxiety, as they struggle to find qualified health professionals who can support them for safe childbirth.
She called on anyone in the world to put themselves in the shoes of a pregnant woman who is waiting for a child to be born into this world while she is fleeing constant bombing, when she does not have enough water to drink, and when she cannot protect herself or her family while moving from one place to another on a search trip. For a qualified health professional.
“Put yourself in that woman’s shoes when the surgeon says to her, ‘I don’t have any anesthesia, and I don’t even have water or soap to wash my hands, but I’m going to try to save your life,'” she said.
“What kind of pain and agony would be going through her mind, or the doctor’s mind, or her husband’s mind, about what the outcome might be for her and her child? And even if she survived, there would be no one to help her,” she added.
Bakr does not forget what a pregnant woman told her about her circumstances: “I felt like I was racing with death.”
Bakr explained why there is now a need for a humanitarian truce and a stronger international response in Gaza, saying: “I cannot find the appropriate words about the catastrophic situation on the ground and the complete loss of humanity that we are seeing in Gaza. What is happening is unprecedented and unparalleled brutality in the history of humanity in recent times.” .
She touched on the destruction of the medical system in Gaza, saying that more than 135 health facilities were targeted, in addition to targeting medical personnel.
She explained that the remaining health facilities that still exist have only a few medications, and there is no fuel to run electricity, noting that caesarean sections were performed for emergency births without anesthesia or with simple anesthesia, and sometimes using only a mobile phone light.
She pointed out that in a “precedent” in the history of the United Nations, the international organization lost 89 of its employees.
An ongoing human tragedy
The war between Israel and Hamas, which has been ongoing since October 7, has resulted in heavy human losses and a humanitarian situation on the verge of collapse. At a time when the United Nations has warned of the Strip becoming a “cemetery for children,” no solution is on the horizon amid mounting pressure to reach humanitarian truces.
Since the October 7 attack, the war has claimed the lives of more than 10,000 Palestinians in Gaza, and has caused a severe humanitarian crisis, with hundreds of thousands suffering, most of them civilians, represented by the absence of basic living necessities, awaiting the approval of truces or a ceasefire that has not yet been achieved.
In the four weeks following the Hamas attack, which killed 1,400 people in Israel, most of them civilians and including women and children, there appears to be no end in sight to the ongoing war, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to reject calls for a ceasefire. According to the report.
About 2.3 million people live in Gaza, under what United Nations officials describe as “catastrophic humanitarian conditions.”
The United Nations warned on Friday that the bombing, food shortages, weak functioning health centers and the collapse of infrastructure pose particular risks to pregnant women and children.
The organization said, “There are about 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza, and more than 180 give birth every day. 15 percent of them are likely to suffer from pregnancy or childbirth complications and need additional medical care.”
The Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund, Natalia Kanem, said in a statement: “We reiterate the call on the UN Secretary-General to cancel the evacuation order from northern Gaza, which makes the deteriorating humanitarian situation worse.”
She continued: “For thousands of women about to give birth, and those who are sick and seriously injured, being forced to leave their homes without any safe place to go, food or water is extremely dangerous.”
Certificates
In testimonies transmitted by the United Nations Population Fund from Gaza, on October 20, a 30-year-old pregnant woman said that she “hid near houses while the bombs fell,” noting that she had been subjected to “dizziness, fatigue, and severe headaches since she fled her home.”
“Every step was like a race against death,” she said.
Another pregnant woman who lives in northern Gaza said: “My child feels every explosion,” and she revealed, speaking from a school where she took refuge after the bombing began, that she had slept the previous night “on a cold floor that shook with every explosion.”
Another woman described going into labor while evacuating her home with her family, saying: “I had no idea where or how I would give birth to my child.”
According to what the UN body reported, this woman was able to reach an ambulance that transported her to the maternity ward in Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical facility in Gaza, but she left the hospital only three hours after her daughter was born to make room for other arrivals.
International efforts
The UN Fund revealed in a statement that it continues to “support reproductive health services, and through its partner, Sharek, it distributes personal hygiene supplies in 49 shelters in southern Gaza run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).”
According to the Fund, medicines for pregnant women were delivered to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, in addition to providing counseling services via a helpline in emergency situations.
UNFPA is also pre-positioning supplies, including essential medicines, medical supplies and shared reproductive health kits, in order to urgently deliver assistance when access is restored within the sector.
However, the UN body notes that “efforts to negotiate a humanitarian corridor have not succeeded so far.”
In previous statements, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, called for “respecting and adhering to international humanitarian law and human rights law, protecting civilians and not using them as human shields at all.”
2023-11-09 00:48:12
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