UN warns thousands of pregnant women and nursing mothers in Gaza face risk of death

Umm Ibrahim Alayan, who is eight-months-pregnant, covers her face as she reacts at a United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) school in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on November 10, 2023 [MAI YAGHI/AFP via Getty Images]

The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) warned on Sunday that 45,000 pregnant women in the Gaza Strip and another 68,000 who are breastfeeding are at risk of anaemia, bleeding and death.

In a post on X, the UN agency blamed the fact that the women face severe food shortages because of Israel’s siege and ongoing offensive. It concluded that an immediate ceasefire is the only way to ensure the delivery of food and aid to the Palestinians in Gaza, who are all in desperate need.

As of yesterday, Israel had killed more than 18,800 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since 7 October, most of them children and women. The occupied Palestinian territory has been under Israeli siege for more than 16 years, and is in the grip of an “unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” say Palestinian and UN sources.

READ: Calls for probe into claims Israel ‘burying people alive’ in Gaza

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