Speaking from the broken enclave, UNICEF Communications manager Tess Ingram said at least 165 children are believed to have died “painful and avoidable deaths” linked to malnutrition during the war between Hamas fighters and Israel.
A lesser known scourge is acute hunger among pregnant and lactating women and “the devastating domino effect» of this lack of healthy nutrition on thousands of newborns.
“In Gaza’s hospitals, I met several newborns who weighed less than two pounds, their small chests heaving with the effort of staying alive,” Ms. Ingram said.
Born into danger
Speaking to journalists in Geneva via video link, she explained that low birth weight infants are about 20 times more likely to die than normal weight infants.
The UNICEF spokesperson pointed out that before the 2022 war, an average of 250 babies per month, or about 5 percent, were born with a birth weight of less than 2.5 kilograms, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
In the first half of 2025, even with fewer births, this proportion increased to 10% of all births, or about 300 babies per month, reaching 460 per month in the three months before the ceasefire.
This amounts to 15 per day, almost double the pre-war average.
“Low birth weight is usually caused by poor maternal nutrition, increased maternal stress, and limited prenatal care.“, explained Ms. Ingram.
“In Gaza, we are witnessing all three of these phenomena, and the response is not fast enough, nor on the scale required. »
Reality of war
The UNICEF spokesperson added that in October alone, 8,300 pregnant and lactating women were admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition. “in a location where there was no perceptible malnutrition among this group before October 2023.”
“This trend is a serious warning and will likely lead to the birth of low birth weight babies in the Gaza Strip in the coming months,” she said, adding: “This is not over. »
The UN responded to this dire situation by replacing incubators, ventilators and other life-sustaining equipment destroyed during the conflict.
UNICEF also provided supplements to tens of thousands of pregnant and lactating women to prevent malnutrition, screening young children for acute malnutrition and enrolling them in treatment.
But to improve the response, more aid is urgently needed in the Gaza Strip.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Monday that “persistent obstacles” to reaching the most vulnerable aid include insecurity, customs clearance problems, delays and refusals of goods at crossing points. Humanitarian teams also stress that limited routes are planned for transporting humanitarian supplies inside the Gaza Strip.
Call to Rafah
The opening of the Rafah crossing in southern Gaza could help increase the flow of humanitarian trucks and reduce the number of malnourished children, said UNICEF’s Ingram.
“We really need to see all types of aid coming in, especially nutritious foods through commercial channels,” she added, stressing that local markets need to be restocked with more commercial products so that prices can come down and products such as fruits and vegetables, meat and dairy can become affordable for families.
The UNICEF spokesperson insisted that the ceasefire in force for two months “should offer families security, not more loss”, recalling that more than 70 children have been killed since it began on October 10.
“Generations of families, including those born today as a result of this ceasefire, have been forever changed by what has been done to them,” Ms. Ingram said, noting that she sees and hears the generational impacts of the conflict on mothers and infants “almost every day in hospitals, in nutritional clinics, in family tents.”
“It’s less visible than blood and wounds, but it’s omnipresent,” she said.
Ms Ingram insisted that the “domino effect from mother to child” – the impact of malnutrition, stress and displacement on pregnant women and their babies – should and could have been avoided.
“No child should be scarred by war before they take their first breath“, she said, highlighting the “brutal reality” of the conflict and the “restrictions of Israeli aid, which have exhausted hospitals and starved and stressed mothers.”
“So much suffering could have been avoided if international humanitarian law had been respected,” she concluded.
Publicado anteriormente en Almouwatin.
