03/01/2024
The terror of being A PREGNANT WOMAN IN G*ZA during the ongoing genocid
Due to the shortage of medical supplies, pregnant Palestinian women are forced to watch their bellies getting cut open and feeling each moment of the process. They feel and see each sharp object that cuts into their bodies. Many of those operations are performed under the phone's flashlights while the hospitals are shaking due to the heavy Israeli bombing
*Many of the women who are delivering without anesthesia are already suffering with amputated body parts due to the bombing, and many other horrifying injuries that are already unbearable. Doctors can only provide thick pieces of cloths for them to bite on, that is the only available method to ease their pain. The torture they are going through is hard to comprehend
*Many of the pregnant women who are rescued from under the rubble are suffering with fatal injuries in placenta, causing the immediate death for the baby, or the mother, and in many cases, for both
*PREMATURE BIRTH
Delivering the baby is not the end of the crisis. Many Gazan babies are currently born before 37 weeks of pregnancy are completed, making them in urgent and constant need of Incubators. Due to the blackout off electricity in hospitals, many of those babies are in imminent danger of death.
*The aftermath
The women who do manage to reach a health center are sent home "three hours after delivery" to make room for other women or the wounded. Without food, clean water, electricity or fuel to keep incubators and intensive care units running, and with a health system "battered and on the verge of collapse. And it is not only women about to give birth who are at risk, many pregnant women went through miscarriages due to the devouring circumstance.
Artwork by
Text by .barq
