Belkis Wille, the Associate Crisis, Conflict and Arms Director for Human Rights Watch (HRW), talks about her group’s latest report, which accuses Israel of inflicting “serious and sometimes life-threatening danger” on pregnant and postpartum women and girls in Gaza over 15 months of war.

Jerusalem

The United States has joined Israel in striking nuclear targets in Iran. It follows an escalating broader conflict in the region including the ongoing Gaza war.

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Belkis Wille, Associate Crisis, Conflict and Arms Director for Human Rights Watch (HRW), has addressed the organization's latest report concerning the impact of Israeli actions on pregnant and postpartum women and girls in Gaza. This 50-page document outlines the collapse of Gaza's healthcare system due to hostilities and a blockade, significantly affecting maternal care. Interviews conducted with both healthcare workers and pregnant women highlight the absence of prenatal care, essential nutrition, and clean water in the region. These shortfalls have led to increased rates of miscarriage, stillbirth, and low birth weight among newborns. 

The report provides harrowing accounts from two Palestinian women who lost their fetuses due to explosive ordnance, which also claimed the lives of their partners. It highlights a 300-percent increase in miscarriages since the onset of hostilities. HRW's findings align with data from Gaza's health ministry, which reported the malnutrition-related deaths of 56 children and the deaths of eight infants from hypothermia.

The report also emphasizes the dire circumstances for newborns, many of whom suffer from conditions related to malnutrition and lack of clean water. Mothers face challenges in breastfeeding due to malnutrition, and are sometimes forced to mix contaminated water with formula, causing fatal diarrhea in infants. Furthermore, the lack of electricity and resources has led to overcrowded and unsanitary conditions at healthcare facilities, resulting in multiple infants being placed in a single incubator, heightening the risk of fatalities.



HRW: Israel endangered pregnant, postpartum women and girls

And frankly, these are staggering, shocking numbers in this report. It's a 50 page report. Tell me about some of the most important information and findings that we urgently need to know about. So, of course, the hostilities by Israel and Gaza, as well as Israel's blockade, have led to really a collapse of the health care system there, and that is impacting every civilian in Gaza, women, children and men. But that that that collapse of the health care system is really having an acute impact on pregnant women and on newborns. And what we found in our interviews with women who have been pregnant since the hostilities began, as well as medical workers, both international and local ones based in Gaza, is that basically there is no prenatal care for women in Gaza. And in addition to a lack of access to medical care during their pregnancy, they're not getting nutritious and regular access to food. They do not have clean water. And that's both to drink and also to wash themselves. If they get an infection that, you know, that can jeopardize not only their life, but the life of their fetus. And all of these conditions together are conditions to lead to higher rates of miscarriage, higher rates of stillbirth and also early birth, which leads to low birth weight babies. But what we see is that at this small number of health care facilities that are providing for maternal health, they are dealing with overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, power cuts. So they don't even have enough incubators for those low birth weight babies that are being born in this context. Yeah, I mean, it's really shocking. And as we all know, when a woman is pregnant, she's at her most vulnerable and will do anything to protect the baby. And shockingly, in the report, it says two Palestinian women told HRW their fetuses died and they were injured by explosive weapons that also killed their partners. And these stories are absolutely harrowing. And it speaks to some of the data that you discovered specifically on the miscarriage front, which has increased 300 percent since the war began. This number comes from health care workers and experts on the ground in Gaza. It's unfortunately a reality in armed conflict around the world that the conditions created by armed conflict can lead to things like higher rates of miscarriage and stillbirth. But I think we really see this so incredibly acutely in the context of Gaza because of that whole scale collapse of the health care system, as well as lack of access to food, lack of access to water. And it's because of these conditions that, as you said, women who are in a particularly vulnerable situation have no way of bringing their pregnancy to term safely. And Gaza's health ministry has reported that 56 children starved to death. Absolutely terrifying to think that eight infants and newborns died from hypothermia. And again, it speaks to the dire situations on the ground. You know, newborns, of course, are particularly vulnerable. And what we heard from from mothers are several things. One is women who are too malnourished to be able to breastfeed. Women who are not able to find clean water to mix with formulas. They describe actually putting dirty water into a bottle, shaking it up with the formula powder, and it won't even mix with the water because the water is so contaminated in those conditions. These newborn babies are getting diarrhea, which can be fatal for them. And again, because of a lack of enough incubators, low birth weight babies are at particular risk. And the lack of incubators is because of, you know, electricity cuts, incubators and hospitals that were destroyed. And I spoke to two doctors who were telling me this horrifying reality that they're putting multiple babies into one incubator that is unsanitary, potentially killing all of them.

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