Surge in miscarriage in Gaza raises alarm over genocide through preventing births

A senior Palestinian medical official has warned that 3,958 miscarriages were recorded in the Gaza Strip during the first half of 2026, describing the figure as an “unprecedented” increase as Israel’s genocide continues to devastate maternal and reproductive healthcare.

Dr Bassam Zaqout, director of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society in Gaza, attributed the rise to the severe conditions imposed on pregnant women, including repeated displacement, unsafe transport over damaged roads, inadequate shelter, poor sanitation and continuing fear caused by Israeli attacks.

300% spike in miscarriages: no safe pregnancies in Gaza as Israel’s assault continues, HRW report finds

Zaqout also highlighted the absence of hot water and hygiene products, the spread of disease in overcrowded displacement camps and the lack of safe and consistent access to medical care. Severe shortages of medicines, diagnostic equipment and laboratory supplies have left Gaza’s remaining health facilities unable to provide many essential services.

Separate figures attributed to Gaza’s Ministry of Health show that 921 miscarriages and 2,004 live births were recorded in April alone. This amounts to approximately 460 miscarriages for every 1,000 live births, three times the commonly cited level under normal conditions.

The number of registered births has also fallen sharply. Health officials recorded 5,210 live births in January, 3,433 in February, 3,233 in March and 2,004 in April. Gaza’s Ministry of Interior subsequently registered 1,701 births in May. April’s figure represented a decline of about 67 per cent from the 6,076 births recorded in November 2025.

The collapse of Gaza’s health information system means that the figures may not provide a complete account of miscarriages, stillbirths and maternal deaths. Physicians for Human Rights and the Global Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago warned in January that systematic data collection had become severely limited, making reported reproductive-health figures likely undercounts.

The Gaza Centre for Human Rights said the reproductive crisis must be examined alongside Israel’s destruction of hospitals, maternity wards, primary healthcare centres and fertility clinics. It also cited the killing and detention of health workers, mass malnutrition, restrictions on essential medicines and the collapse of maternal and neonatal care as major contributing factors.

The organisation called for an independent international investigation into whether Israeli policies and military actions have contributed deliberately to preventing births among Palestinians in Gaza. Article II of the Genocide Convention identifies the imposition of measures intended to prevent births within a protected group as one of the acts that may constitute genocide when accompanied by the required intent.

Read: Amnesty accuses Israel of destroying reproductive healthcare in Gaza

The latest warning follows evidence of an escalating reproductive-health emergency throughout Israel’s assault. A January report by Physicians for Human Rights and the University of Chicago documented more than 2,600 miscarriages during the first half of 2025 and a 41 per cent decline in recorded births compared with the same period in 2022. The researchers linked the harm to attacks on healthcare facilities, restrictions on food and medical supplies and acute malnutrition.

The United Nations Population Fund has similarly warned that severe food deprivation, psychological trauma and the destruction of healthcare services are producing catastrophic outcomes for pregnant women and newborn babies. During the first half of 2025, Gaza recorded about 17,000 births, compared with 29,000 during the equivalent period in 2022. One-third of the babies born in 2025 were premature, underweight or required neonatal intensive care.

Read: Israel’s targeting of reproductive services in Gaza is an act of genocide: UN inquiry finds

A UN Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system and its attack on Al-Basma fertility clinic constituted reproductive violence. The commission found that the destruction of the clinic, including thousands of stored embryos and other reproductive specimens, was calculated to prevent Palestinian births and damage the group’s future existence.