The United Nations Population Fund warned on Wednesday that the effects of malnutrition for pregnant women and infants in the Gaza Strip “will extend for generations,” which “will likely cause problems requiring lifelong care” for children currently born in Gaza.
Upon his return from a mission that lasted 5 days in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza, where he spent 5 hours in the Palestinian Strip, Fund representative Andrew Sapperton held a press conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York, during which he said that the extent of the destruction he saw was like a Hollywood movie.
The official at the United Nations agency specializing in sexual and reproductive health recalled that one in every four residents of Gaza suffers from hunger, noting that among them are 11,500 pregnant women.
He added that as a result, 70 percent of newborns are born prematurely and at low weight, compared to 20 percent in the period before the outbreak of war on October 7, 2023.
Sapperton explained that all neonatal facilities in the Gaza Strip’s hospitals are operating far beyond their capacity (170 percent of their capacity), forcing them to place many babies in one incubator.
He pointed out that one third of pregnancies in the Gaza Strip are currently considered “high risk” and that the maternal mortality rate is “high.”
The senior official at the United Nations Population Fund confirmed that “malnutrition is the biggest problem,” in addition to other problems represented by the lack of medicines and the destruction of medical infrastructure, as 94 percent of the sector’s hospitals were damaged or destroyed, and 15 percent of the operating institutions providing emergency obstetric care.
Sapperton pointed out that the lack of contraceptives forces some women to resort to “dangerous abortions.”
He added that all forms of gender-based and sexual violence, including early marriage, “exploded in Gaza, as is the case in all other conflicts.”
