In the Gaza Stripthe hands that bring life are the target of death. His disappearance is followed by that of an entire town. Therefore, the midwives In Gaza they hide their name. They keep their identity secret. They do not shout from the four winds that they have that ancestral power to bring hundreds and hundreds of babies into the world. Faced with an enemy kills mothers, children and newbornsthey know that they, as those responsible for facilitating births with their knowledge, are also on target. The attacks on hospitals, maternity wards and sperm banks They follow the same strategy. The Israeli Army not only destroy life that already exists in Gaza, but also what is to come.
Rida He prefers not to share his full name. She works as a midwife at a Project Hope clinic in the center of the Palestinian enclave. “I love taking care of others,” he admits in a phone call from there. He inherited that passion from his motherwho was also a midwife. It’s a family tradition. “Since I was a child, I saw how she worked, what the benefits of her work were and how she was able to help many parturients; “This made me love this job,” he tells EL PERIÓDICO. At no time did he imagine that this profession, which he was dying to study, could be the reason why. Apart from working against the clock and compensating for shortages with inventiveness, Rida looks for a way to survive.
Fall in birth rate
Only in the first three months of the Israeli military offensive against Gaza in the fall of 2023 were recorded 45 attacks against maternity or neonatal medical centers throughout the enclave, according to a recent report by Doctors for Human Rights (PHR). Furthermore, at least 33 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals have been completely destroyed or suffered considerable damage. Not only is the present annulled, but the future is stifled. The long conflict has destroyed the maternal and reproductive systemwhich is already having serious consequences for current pregnancies and newborns. Fears increase when seeing the impact it could have on the next generations. At the moment, there has already been a drop in 41% in births during regarding the latest available figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health for the same period in 2022.
During that half year, there were also recorded 2,600 spontaneous abortions220 pregnancy-related deaths, 1,460 premature births, more than 1,700 low-weight newborns and more than 2,500 babies required neonatal intensive care. The Gaza tragedy is explained, in part, through figuresbecause Israel does not allow the entry of foreign press into the enclave, at the same time. “All women who give birth are very worriedeven before pregnancy,” says Rida, who feels this endless anxiety every day. “Some newlyweds, as usual, want a baby, but now they are thinking about use family planning although it is very difficult to access the appropriate method,” says the midwife. She, married just over a year, is included among them.
The body of three-month-old Palestinian baby Shatha Abu Jarad, who died from the cold according to doctors, is carried by her uncle to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on January 20, 2026. Daily living conditions for the vast majority of Gaza residents remain extremely precarious, with more than 80% of infrastructure destroyed, according to the United Nations. Several humanitarian and UN workers told AFP that while the situation has improved in some areas since the ceasefire, the humanitarian response remains insufficient due to access restrictions imposed by Israeli authorities, who deny these claims. Water and electricity networks, as well as waste management, no longer function. / Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP
Increase in spontaneous abortions
In a people like the Palestinians, whose existence lasts, the babies have always been wanted. For these women, openly expressing that they do not want to become pregnant is breaking a taboo in Palestinian society. The lack of prevention methods It does not, however, prevent unwanted pregnancies. “Pregnant and lactating women face very difficult situations, such as poor nutritionthe absence of medications and the closure of the borders, in addition to the difficulties in going to medical check-ups due to the lack of transportation,” notes the doctor Barbakha gynecologist and obstetrician at a Project Hope clinic in Khan Younis, located south of Gaza.
“Spontaneous abortions have increased due to fearhe emotional stresstension and difficult life that women live in Gaza,” she tells this newspaper. Only after the first year of war, the chances of her dying from a complication during childbirth multiplied by threeas the UN admitted last December. Many births take place without anesthesia and the lactation of Gazan mothers is marked by extreme hunger, aggravated by the ban on the entry of formula milk by the Israeli authorities for months.
“Reproductive genocide”
Beyond the individual difficulties that these women suffer at a time supposedly linked to happiness and the desire to expand the family, there is something of systematic in his suffering. The constant attacks against key sites for the reproduction of the Palestinian people, such as maternity hospitals, assisted reproduction centers or sperm banksshow that there is a deliberate attempt to dismantling the Palestinian people’s ability to reproduce as a community. Experts in reproductive justice and feminist groups denounce that, in Gaza, Israel is carrying out a “reproductive genocide” by eliminating all those infrastructures that allow and, therefore, their continuity over time.
In the PHR reports from the United States and Israel, they point out the attack by the Israeli Army in December 2023 against the Basma assisted reproduction clinicthe largest fertility center in Gaza, as proof of that macabre plan. The bombing of this complex in Gaza City destroyed about 5,000 reproductive specimens and stopped between 70 and 100 monthly assisted reproduction procedures. In addition to the dismantling of the maternal health system, mothers and midwives are being killed directly or indirectly. During the first six months of the war alone more than 6,000 mothers were murderedaccording to UN Women. . Those who are still alive are malnourished, give birth to low-weight babies, and pregnant women are forced to share a bed in the hospital.
Birth between bombings
Hanaa Mansour she gave birth twice during the military offensive against Gaza. Their first child was born in October 2023, and their daughter in June 2025. “I didn’t expect it, and, in fact, I wasn’t planning to have two babies.“, she acknowledges in voice messages. “Being pregnant during the war, it invades you, above all, a huge fear“, because you are constantly thinking about the baby inside you, the moment you will give birth,” she tells EL PERIÓDICO. The trauma of the first birth of that much-desired baby still accompanies her. “When I went to the hospital, it was very scary because there were bombs around and you could hear the sound of bombs and everything that was destroyed while she was giving birth,” she recalls. Hanaa knows she is lucky to have her children with her, but it is a constant suffering every time they get sick and you can’t do anything for them.
“Being pregnant during the war, you are overcome, above all, by an enormous fear, because you are constantly thinking about the baby inside you, the moment you will give birth, whether it will be safe or not”
“It’s very hard, I hate when my babies get sick“It hurts me to see them like this,” he laments in messages, after launching a string of questions with medical doubts. She, in the scarcity of Gaza, is incapable of solving them. The anguish of mothers in Gaza does not end when they give birth, but rather multiplies. A United Nations commission has pointed out the impact on the right to reproductive health as one of the reasons for declaring Israel’s actions as a genocide. “Reproductive violence constitutes a violation of international law; When carried out systematically and with the intention to destroy, it falls within the definition of genocide; “The destruction of reflects the deliberate imposition of living conditions designed to bring about the total or partial destruction of the Palestinian people,” states the Physicians for Human Rights report.
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