Dr. Amer Nael, who works in Gaza City at the American Hospital and the Al-Ahli Arab National Hospital, has seen firsthand the devastating impact of the health care system’s near-total decimation on his patients in Gaza. Hospitals have been damaged or otherwise reduced to rubble and many medications are blocked from entering the enclave. Critical shortages of medical supplies, diagnostic and imaging equipment, blood units, and beds have been particularly challenging for some groups, he says—especially in cases of pregnant patients who require special care.
“Many patients’ health is deteriorating daily, and this has increased the suffering of people in the Gaza Strip,” Nael says, “especially pregnant [people] who did not receive adequate care during pregnancy and, after childbirth, have no opportunity for care due to the lack of medical resources and staff.”
The intense stressors involved in living through armed conflict are known to have severe adverse effects on survivors’ physical and mental health. In pregnant people, this can lead to an increase in complications during pregnancies, including miscarriage, stillbirth, prematurity, and other birth defects.
This has been the case for twenty-three-year-old Duaa Mohamed, whose three-year-old son was born before the war on Gaza began. Due to complications she experienced during the pregnancy, her son was born a month early, and doctors told her she would require comprehensive care and continuous monitoring in the hospital during a future pregnancy. But when Duaa became pregnant again in 2025, she had no access to prenatal care or sufficient medical checkups amid bombing, food shortages, and inflation.
“I suffered greatly during my pregnancy. It was difficult to get to hospitals due to the lack of necessary medical equipment and the limited space and beds available for patients,” Duaa says. “I was in constant pain and felt unsafe and afraid.”
The doctors told Duaa she would give birth in the eighth month of her pregnancy and that she needed to take a course of medication before her delivery to ensure the baby’s lungs were fully developed. She took the first dose of the medication as prescribed, but when she attempted to purchase the next dose, she couldn’t find it at any pharmacies or health clinics.
When Duaa and her mother arrived at the hospital on her due date in January 2026, she had low iron levels and was experiencing shortness of breath. The necessary medical equipment wasn’t available, leaving her anxious and in pain. Because the maternity ward was overcrowded, Duaa waited for nearly two hours before entering the operating room for a Cesarean section, which was performed under general anesthesia. After the delivery, the hospital staff took the baby straight to the nursery.
“I felt terrified and started screaming to see my baby, whom I had waited so long for,” she says. “While I was screaming and in pain, I heard the nurse tell my mother that we had to leave the hospital because there wasn’t enough space to sit, and the baby had to stay in the nursery. [They said] we would be in touch remotely with the hospital about any new developments.”
When she returned home, she held the tiny clothes she had bought for her newborn son and cried. For two days, the family waited and tried to contact the hospital, to no avail. When the doctor called, she was hoping to hear that her baby was fine and she could take him home. But instead, the doctor told her they’d lost the baby due to “lack of necessary medical follow-up,” and told her to retrieve his body from the hospital for burial.
Duaa says her son, whose arrival she had eagerly awaited, was killed by Gaza’s broken health care system. She continues to grieve the loss of her baby, alongside countless other expectant parents in Gaza. In April, the Gaza Health Ministry reported about 920 miscarriages among about 2,000 pregnancies in the past month, translating to about 460 miscarriages per 1,000 pregnancies compared to the pre-war average of 140 per 1,000.
Pregnancy in Gaza has become especially harrowing for those facing complications that necessitate delivery by Cesarean section—a procedure that, though life-saving in many instances, carries significant risk of complications in even the most sterile and controlled circumstances. In Gaza, some pregnant people have had to undergo C-sections without anesthesia due to medical supply shortages. Other challenges include the absence of comfortable beds after the operation, the lack of nursing staff for individual follow-ups, and the inability to go outside due to the bombing, keeping the patient bedridden and immobile and potentially causing blood clots.
During her pregnancy in 2025, twenty-eight-year-old Dina Hassan and her doctors decided she would need to deliver her baby by Caesarean section. Before the procedure, she underwent several pre-operative tests to check her heart, blood levels, and physical symptoms, and medical staff drew her blood in case she needed a transfusion, as there were no matching units available at the facility. On her due date, she arrived at the hospital feeling overjoyed and eagerly awaiting the arrival of her child despite the war and destruction around her.
A nurse prepared Dina for the operating room, and told her family members they had to leave the hospital because there was no room for them to wait. The C-section was successful, and she went home with her newborn later that day, with instructions to keep her incision clean and change her dressing at home using antiseptic, as the hospital lacked the capacity to do so. But six days after the surgery, she returned to the hospital with an infected incision and in extreme pain. The doctor told her she needed to complete a course of antibiotics, after which they would remove and restitch her stitches.
“I started crying from the intense pain and the overwhelming stress and anxiety,” Dina says. “I struggled to move without assistance and couldn’t even hold my baby normally. I was given antibiotics, and after the inflammation subsided, the doctor opened and re-stitched some of the stitches, as if I were having another C-section.”
Dina says this was the most difficult experience she has ever faced, attributing it to the hospital’s inability to provide adequate care and the unavailability of medical supplies and sterilization.
“I suffered greatly during my pregnancy amid famine, displacement, and fear,” Dina says. “Now, I am enduring indescribable pain and suffering.”