According to the UN human rights office (OHCHR), more than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7, 2023, when Palestinian armed groups attacked communities in southern Israel, triggering a large-scale military attack by Israel on the enclave.
The OHCHR said 94 percent of Gaza’s hospitals were damaged or destroyed, leaving pregnant women and newborns without essential care.
“The Israeli blockade also prevented the entry of items essential to civilian survival, including medical supplies and nutrients necessary for maintaining a pregnancy and safe delivery,” the Office said.
By the end of 2024, women in Gaza were three times more likely to die in childbirth and three times more likely to miscarry compared to pre-war levels, while newborn deaths also increased, OHCHR reported.
Hospitals destroyed, medical staff killed
Israeli strikes hit maternity wards and neonatal intensive care units, while the December 2023 bombing of Gaza’s largest fertility clinic resulted in the loss of more than 4,000 embryos and 1,000 sperm and egg specimens.
Medical personnel were also targeted, OHCHR said, citing figures from the Palestinian Health Ministry. 1,722 health workers killed as of September 2025.
Dr Ambereen Sleemi, a volunteer gynecologist in Gaza, told OHCHR: “As we were doing our rounds, bombs were going off in the background… Sometimes quadcopters would come in and try to shoot nurses or literally chase them through the hospital corridors. »
She said the pregnant women arrived with gunshot wounds, including to the abdomen.
“Many women were simply too injured to survive. If their injuries did not take their lives, sepsis often did, because there were not enough medical supplies or antibiotics.
hunger factor
The blockade has led to severe shortages of food and infant formula. Since October 2025, 463 Palestinians have died of malnutrition, including 157 children, the Health Ministry reported.
Jonathan Crix of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), speaking from Gaza, told UN News that children and families enduring winter storms in makeshift tents:
“Everything was completely wet…the mattresses were wet, the children’s clothes were wet. It’s extremely difficult to live in these conditions.”
He warned of a surge in acute watery diarrhea and fears of new outbreaks.
“With the very poor hygienic conditions and very limited sanitation system available, we are extremely concerned about the spread of waterborne diseases.”
Barriers in the West Bank are growing
The OHCHR was also alarmed by Israel’s construction of a new barrier and a new road in the Jordan Valley.
Ajith Sunghay, head of the office in the occupied Palestinian territory, said this would “separate Palestinian communities from each other and Palestinian farmers in Tubas from the land they own on the other side of the planned barrier.
He also warned that this would constitute “a new step towards the progressive fragmentation of the West Bank, which would ultimately lead to the consolidation of annexation”, stressing that this Palestinian refugee status rights “cannot be removed or modified by unilateral coercive measures”.
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