'Never been worse': UNICEF sounds alarm for Gaza’s mothers, infants
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Overcrowded hospitals, vanishing supplies, and newborns sharing oxygen lines reveal a collapsing health system in Gaza, UN agencies warn.
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Palestinian mother Shaima Seiam, 23, lies wounded at Nasser Hospital holding the body of her infant daughter, Ahlam, who was just days away from her first birthday, after an overnight Israeli airstrike hit their home in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP)
Mothers and newborns in Gaza are enduring unprecedented hardships as hospitals buckle under the strain of "Israel’s" latest aggression and dwindling medical supplies, the UN children’s agency said on Friday.
“The situation for mothers and newborns in Gaza has never been worse. In Nasser hospital, we're seeing hospital corridors lined with women who've just given birth,” UNICEF spokesperson James Elder told reporters in Geneva via video link from Gaza.
The World Health Organization echoed the alarm, warning that the enclave’s health system is on the brink of total collapse. Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, WHO’s representative in the occupied Palestinian Territory, described Nasser Hospital as more crowded than he had ever seen, with patients arriving from Gaza City amid "Israel’s" aggression.
"Israel" has ordered the roughly one million residents of Gaza City to evacuate south, as it intensifies one of the largest offensives of the war this month. Officials say the operation is aimed at dismantling Hamas' strongholds in the territory’s most populous urban center.
Scenes inside al-Nasser Hospital
Inside al-Nasser, the scale of the crisis is stark. “Every corridor you see mattresses and patients on the floor. There's a huge increase,” Peeperkorn said.
Elder described mothers and newborns lying on the ground, with premature babies forced to share a single oxygen line. “They shared 20 minutes each. The other two children cry while the third child gets that oxygen for 20 minutes,” he said.
Only 14 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are even partially functional, according to the WHO. Supplies are running out fast.
“We see fast declining shortages of essential items such as dressing kits, gauzes... but also everything relates to blood supplies and transfusion kits,” Peeperkorn noted, citing ongoing delays in getting shipments through.
