“The situation of pregnant women and newborns in the Gaza Strip is beyond belief, and it demands intensified and immediate actions,” Tess Ingram, a UNICEF spokesperson, said on Friday.
“The already precarious situation of infant and maternal mortality has worsened as the healthcare system collapses.”
“The already precarious situation of infant and maternal mortality has worsened as the healthcare system collapses,” Ingram stressed, adding that mothers face unimaginable challenges in accessing adequate medical care, nutrition, and protection before, during, and after birth.
Pregnant and breastfeeding mothers and their babies are living in “inhumane conditions, makeshift shelters (with) poor nutrition and unsafe water”.
“This is putting about 135,000 children under the age of two at severe risk of malnutrition,” she warned.
The deputy executive director of the UN children’s fund has also warned that children in the blockaded enclave are facing dire hunger and disease.
Ted Chaiban described the Gaza Strip as the most dangerous place in the world to be a child.
“We have said this is a war on children. But these truths do not seem to be getting through,” he said in a statement.
“The little food that is available doesn’t meet children’s unique nutritional needs. As a result, thousands of children are malnourished and sick,” he added.
“If this decline persists, we could see deaths due to indiscriminate conflict compounded by deaths due to disease and hunger,” he said.
“We need a major breakthrough. The sheer mass of civilians on the border is hard to fathom and the conditions they live in are inhuman,” he added.
At least 10,500 children have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since October 7, the Hamas-run Ministry of Health reported on Tuesday.
The Palestinian death toll from the ongoing Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7 has climbed to 24,762, the health ministry in the territory said Friday.
In a statement, the ministry added that 62,108 other people had been injured in the offensive.
