Across Gaza, the harsh reality confronting pregnant and breastfeeding women has reached new depths of tragedy. ActionAid reports that around 70–75% of the roughly 300 women who visit Al-Awda Hospital each day are suffering from malnutrition, deprived not only of vital food but also of essential supplements needed during pregnancy and nursing.

Medical staff at Al-Awda warn of dire consequences: mothers weakened by starvation are experiencing severe weight loss, poor fetal growth, diminished fetal movement, and deficiencies in iron, calcium, and vitamin D, compounding risks to both mother and child. Over 60,000 women are believed to be affected, while hospital nutrition teams, though striving to respond, are overwhelmed by the sheer scale of need.

These harrowing testimonies arrive just days after the UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification confirmed that Gaza is in a state of famine, underscoring how food deprivation has become a weapon of war. The situation is not confined to expectant mothers: many children are born underweight, and infants suffer from severe developmental impairments. Experts caution that without urgent intervention, a whole generation may endure irreversible physical and cognitive harm.

What unfolds here is not the result of misfortune but a deliberate, orchestrated crisis, an unfolding catastrophe that threatens the most vulnerable among us.