A UNICEF spokesman said Tuesday that Israel has repeatedly refused to allow the transfer of incubators from an evacuated hospital in northern Gaza, increasing pressure on overcrowded hospitals in the south, where newborns are now sharing oxygen masks.
The two-year war between Israel and Hamas has increased stress and malnutrition among pregnant women, leading to a surge in premature and underweight babies, which the World Health Organization says now represent a fifth of newborns in the Strip.
The Israeli offensive on Gaza City in the north of the Strip last month has closed hospitals in that area, increasing overcrowding in those still open in the south.
UNICEF spokesman James Elder described mothers lining the corridors of Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, carrying their infants, saying the severe shortage is forcing hospital staff to share oxygen masks and beds with premature babies. Meanwhile, those vital devices remain in closed hospitals in the north. “We were trying to bring incubators from an evacuated hospital in the north, and four delegations were turned away,” Elder told Reuters via video link from Gaza, referring to supplies currently stuck at the destroyed al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital in Gaza City.
He added, when he visited a hospital in the south: “In one of the pediatric rooms, there were three babies and three mothers on one bed, with one source of oxygen. The mothers were taking turns giving each baby 20 minutes of oxygen… This is the level of desperation the mothers have reached now.”
