Gaza, the decimation of care for newborns: the Kamal Adwan hospital is a war zone and at least 4,000 children are without any assistance

ROMA – Three neonatal intensive care units are destroyed – all in northern Gaza – and the number of available incubators has plummeted by 70% to around 54 incubators across the Strip. In northern Gaza, the number of incubators has dropped from 105 to 9. There is a lack of sufficient nutritious food for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, resulting in an increase in pre-term births. Says the regional director ofUNICEF for the Middle East and North Africa, Adele Khodr: “The Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza has become a besieged war zone. Its neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), the last one left in the North, according to news reports, was damaged by heavy attacks in recent days.”

Every hospitalized newborn is defenseless. “Access to the hospital is difficult – continues the UNICEF director – but the news we can get speaks of hospitalized children who have been killed and injured during the continuous attacks and that the oxygen and water supplies have been damaged, interrupting the crucial care for the few still clinging to life inside. Every newborn baby struggling to keep breathing inside a hospital incubator is completely helpless and completely dependent on medical care and specialized equipment to survive.”

Without life-saving treatments. In the Gaza Strip, it is estimated that at least 4,000 children have been deprived of life-saving neonatal care over the past year because of ongoing attacks on hospitals desperately trying to keep them alive, because electricity supplies have been cut and because fuel has run low. provided to hospitals is woefully inadequate. This situation has been particularly deadly in the northern parts of the Gaza Strip.

Before and after the war. Before the start of the war in October 2023, there were eight neonatal intensive care units with a total of 178 incubators in the Gaza Strip. Most of these units had recently received new equipment, including incubators, from UNICEF. Even then, the capacity of Gaza’s neonatal intensive care units was insufficient to meet the high demand for specialized neonatal care. Today, three of these neonatal intensive care units are destroyed – all in northern Gaza – and the number of available incubators has plummeted by 70% to around 54 incubators across the Strip.

The number of children born prematurely is increasing. At least 6,000 newborns need intensive care in the Gaza Strip every year, we read in a document released by UNICEF, but the real number could be higher: doctors have said that the percentage of children born prematurely, malnourished or with development and other health complications has increased due to the impact of war on fetal development, birth and care.

“A fundamental crisis of our humanity”. “Health facilities are protected by International Humanitarian Law – reiterated Adele Khodr – as are suppliers and humanitarian staff. Vulnerable newborns and sick and injured children requiring intensive care are killed in tents, incubators and in their parents’ arms. The fact that this has not driven the political will to end the war represents a fundamental crisis of our humanity.”