RED CRESCENT: 180 WOMEN GIVING BIRTH IN GAZA EACH DAY UNDER ‘INHUMANE CONDITIONS’

Sun 14 January 2024:

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has said that 180 women are giving birth in Gaza under “dangerous and inhumane conditions” every day.

“Many of them are unable to reach hospitals due to being in besieged areas, with the Israeli forces preventing ambulances from reaching them,” the group said in a social media post on Saturday.

In a video posted by the group, a doctor attempts to assist a woman through birth by giving her instructions over the phone.

In #Gaza, 180 women🤰give birth daily under dangerous and inhumane conditions. 📍Many of them are unable to reach hospitals due to being in besieged areas, with the Israeli forces preventing ambulances 🚑from reaching them. 👇In this video, there is a call with the sister of a… pic.twitter.com/Lqh33RwVi3

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) January 13, 2024

50,000 women pregnant in Gaza amid ‘decimation’ of its health system

The United Nations reported last month that over 50,000 pregnant women are now living in Gaza, with more than 180 births occurring every day despite the “decimation” of its healthcare infrastructure.

In a statement on 24 December, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) said its doctors and midwives “are doing everything possible to provide care for post-natal and high-risk pregnant women at the seven operational UNRWA health centres” – down from 22 before the bloodiest-ever Israeli assault on Gaza began.

At the same time, hospitals, protected under international humanitarian law, have repeatedly been hit by Israeli strikes since the war erupted.

As of December 20, the WHO registered 246 Israeli attacks on healthcare infrastructure in Gaza, including hospitals and ambulances.

Earlier this week, WHO described “unbearable” scenes of largely abandoned patients begging for food and water after its teams visited two badly damaged hospitals in northern Gaza where the war is the bloodiest.

The UN body said only nine out of 36 hospitals were partially functional in the whole of the besieged territory – none in the north – as Israel continued to target medical facilities.

Around 80 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced to southern Gaza, with tens of thousands crammed in UN schools or shielding against the cold in makeshift tents.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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