After more than one year of relentless war and destruction in Gaza, Palestine, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams are witnessing how dire living conditions, attacks in densely populated areas, poor access to food, and repeated displacements are leading to severe health issues for Palestinian children, newborns, and their mothers.

“We are treating infants who have infectious diseases, respiratory diseases, and skin diseases,” says Dr Mohammad Abu Tayyem, an MSF paediatrician working at Nasser hospital in south Gaza, where over 300 paediatric patients are treated every day. “Of course, we saw this before the war, but today we see it much more, and the figures continue to rise. We see overcrowding in the department, including children with acute pneumonia.” 

MSF teams face an overwhelming number of patients. Between June and October 2024, 3,421 babies and children under five years old were treated by MSF at the inpatient paediatric ward in Nasser hospital, with almost a quarter (22 per cent) related to diarrhoea and 8.9 per cent to meningitis.