GAZA, The Occupied Palestinian Territory — When Rana learned she was pregnant, her joy was quickly overshadowed by another feeling – fear.  

For Rana, as for many of the 55,000 pregnant women across Gaza seeking healthcare, the question was not if her baby would be born but where, and whether they would survive the delivery. “I thought I would have to give birth in a tent,” she recalled.  

After two years of relentless attacks, Gaza’s health system has been shattered. Only a fraction of health facilities remain functional, and very few can provide emergency obstetric and newborn care. Health workers have been displaced, medicines are scarce, and neonatal units are overwhelmed, operating far beyond capacity with too few incubators and trained staff.

“As my due date approached, I was terrified. I didn’t know how I could bring a child into this world under these conditions,” she told UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, which is the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency. 

Like most of Gaza’s 2.1 million residents, Rana is displaced, living in a makeshift tent, exposed to severe winter conditions and heavy rains. Recent flooding has washed away shelters, destroyed belongings, and left families cold, soaked and prone to disease, with the risks of respiratory infections, diarrhoea, hepatitis and hypothermia increasing sharply. 

Pregnant women, new mothers and newborns are among those most in danger, as tragically witnessed in Khan Younis, where a two-week-old baby recently died from hypothermia.

A lifeline when it mattered most

At a moment when Gaza’s health system has stretched beyond its limits, trained midwives and functioning health facilities are crucial in ensuring women and babies survive childbirth and the delicate post-partum period. 

For Rana, this meant being able to give birth not in a flooded tent, but in a functional hospital, surrounded by health workers and with the equipment needed for a safe delivery. 

Thankfully she was able to give birth in the Patient’s Friends Benevolent Society Hospital in Gaza City. This hospital, along with Al Khair Hospital in Khan Younis, was recently fully rehabilitated through UNFPA support and with funding from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia through the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre (KSrelief).