Jabalia, Gaza Strip – In Jabalia, the joy of welcoming a newborn is spoiled, to say the least.
Marked by the pain of displacement, by the fact that mothers must give birth while fighter planes fly over their planet and by the uncertainty about the future of these babies.
Tel Aviv Tribune spoke to three refugee women at a United Nations school in Jabalia, northern Gaza, about their pregnancies and childbirths, the losses they suffered and their ability to draw joy from arrival of their babies.
Aya
Aya Deeb sits in the corner of a room in a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). She speaks softly as her baby, Yara, sleeps next to her. The area around her is clean and tidy, and Yara is well-kept, tenderly covered with a pink blanket in the converted car seat she sleeps in.
Adjusting her blue patterned Isdal dress, Aya tells Tel Aviv Tribune how she feared losing Yara before she was born on Christmas Day.
In the weeks before her birth, Aya – who had long been displaced from her home in Bir an-Naaja, in the northern Gaza Strip – moved from one precarious shelter to another, trying to escape Israeli bombs. .
“At the start of the conflict, we moved to my husband’s uncle’s house in Zawayda for security reasons. But then they targeted the house next door and my husband died in that attack,” she says.
After that, the pregnant woman took her little son, Mohamed. returned to the north to stay with her family and continued to move from place to place until she and her parents found themselves at school with thousands of other displaced people.
“I was so depressed during those last few months of my pregnancy. There are so many things a pregnant woman needs in her last trimester, but there wasn’t even enough food or clean water,” she said, her face exhausted as she held back her emotions.
“But the worst part was my grief over my husband and not having him with me during the birth.”
Aya’s labor started on Christmas Eve and intensified through the night until her parents took her to the shelter clinic at 2 a.m. and ran around trying to find a midwife to help her give birth.
Yara arrived shortly after, around 5 a.m., Aya estimates – born on the clinic floor behind a sheet stretched in the corner of the room, the only privacy the clinic staff could provide.
“I was in labor and all I heard was the roar of the warplanes above me, the bombings. There was fear everywhere,” says Aya.
Yara did not obtain a birth certificate and did not receive any vaccinations. His mother received no medical treatment either.
When asked what she wishes for her daughter, Aya replies: “A long life, lived in peace, without war. They see so much from a young age.
Aya is one of thousands of women in Gaza forced to give birth and care for their newborns during Israel’s war in retaliation for the October 7 Hamas attacks.
The war has devastated Gaza’s health system, with 180 babies born every day, according to UN figures. From October 7 to January 5, the World Health Organization documented 304 Israeli attacks on health facilities in Gaza, which also killed more than 300 medical personnel.
The severe shortage of doctors and midwives, coupled with the Israeli siege of Gaza, threatens the lives of countless pregnant women and babies.
Raeda
Raeda al-Masry also wears an isdal, the ubiquitous garment worn by women in Gaza to maintain their privacy.
She sits cross-legged on the floor of a classroom where she has taken refuge, holding her baby in a burping position, lightly patting his bottom as she speaks animatedly to Tel Aviv Tribune.
Raeda is from Beit Hanoon and was moved to Jabalia at the start of the war.
“The building we were sheltering in was bombed and rescuers pulled me and my eldest son, aged 14 months, out of the rubble,” she said, explaining how they arrived at the school. .
“Moath was born right here in the classroom about two months ago. When my labor started, we called an ambulance or something, but there were no resources. No one came to help.
“Oh my God, it was such a difficult birth. There is nothing here that will help during childbirth. I didn’t even have clothes. People had to dig around to find something to put Moath in.
Although Raeda managed to get to Kamal Adwan Hospital after Moath’s birth for check-ups for both of them, no vaccines were available. He is still not vaccinated.
“They told me there were no vaccines… but look where we are. The baby is here, at school, where all kinds of diseases are spreading. Right now, something is happening to my chest. He’s having trouble breathing, but there’s nothing I can do.
“I don’t eat enough to breastfeed him either. Some people helped me by bringing me formula.
“My wish for my son is that he lives, that he is safe, that he has food, even diapers. I don’t want him to grow up needy.
Um Raed
Um Raed also sits, holding her baby boy, swaddled in a fuzzy blanket and sleeping soundly, perhaps reassured by the sound of his mother’s voice and her rocking movements as she holds him.
He’s been sick a lot since he was born, Um Raed says, wide-eyed and serious, the frustration of not being able to do more for her child clear on her face.
“I came to term here, at the school shelter,” she says, “but my labor was not starting, probably because of the fear in which I lived.
“So I used to walk from here to Kamal Adwan Hospital to get checked every day. I did this for three days – I couldn’t understand why my labor wasn’t starting.
Like thousands of other mothers in Gaza, when her labor began, she had to give birth in rudimentary and unsanitary conditions, without any safety measures, simply because Gaza’s health system was running out of everything.
“Since birth, I no longer know whether to concentrate on my contractions or on the noise of the war planes above me. Should I be worried about my baby or should I be afraid of attacks happening at that time?
“You know, for such a young baby, he has learned to recognize the sounds of bombing. Every time there is a bombing here, he jumps and gets scared. I don’t think babies this young should recognize danger in this way.
On October 9, Israel tightened its siege on Gaza, depriving its population, including a million children, of food, water and medicine, about a third of whom are under the age of five.
Newborns are most vulnerable because their mothers often do not consume enough calories to breastfeed them and infant formula is in short supply.
When asked what she wants for her little boy, Um Raed answers “vaccines”.
In the long term, she says, she wants what any mother would want for her child, that Raed grows up in a healthy environment, in peace, without suffering from want and without learning about war at such a young age.
However, all three mothers agree: this is the reality of war in which thousands of babies are born, with no end in sight.
Although they want the best for their babies, they also fear what could happen to them as Israel continues its attack on Gaza.