UNICEF: Gaza Mothers and Babies in Crisis Amid Hospital Siege

Gaza’s health crisis has reached a breaking point, with UNICEF warning that mothers and newborn babies are enduring unprecedented hardships due to the collapse of medical services and severe shortages of essential supplies.

James Elder, UNICEF’s spokesperson, said on Friday that “the situation for mothers and newborns in Gaza has never been worse. At Nasser Hospital in the south, the corridors are overflowing with women who have just given birth.”

The already dire circumstances escalated further as a premature Palestinian infant died at Al-Helou Hospital in Gaza City’s Al-Nasr neighborhood. According to Palestinian news agency WAFA, three premature babies were transferred to hospitals in southern Gaza with the assistance of the World Health Organization, while ten more remain in neonatal care at Al-Helou under extreme conditions.

Access to Al-Helou Hospital remains critically restricted. Earlier this week, Israeli forces besieged Al-Shifa and Al-Helou Hospitals in Gaza City, targeting them with heavy artillery despite housing dozens of patients and displaced civilians. Al-Helou hosts vital units, including a cancer ward and neonatal incubators, and is currently sheltering more than 90 people—both medical staff and patients—who are trapped inside without communications or internet access.

Medical workers warn that without immediate humanitarian access, more newborns and vulnerable patients could die due to a lack of power, medicines, and safe evacuation routes.

Meanwhile, Palestinian medical sources confirmed that 38 Palestinians were killed across Gaza on Friday alone, following a wave of Israeli airstrikes and shelling.

Humanitarian agencies are urging urgent intervention, stressing that Gaza’s mothers and newborns represent some of the most vulnerable populations caught in the conflict, with their survival now hanging by a thread.