Pregnant women faced with an impossible choice in Gaza, says ActionAid.
Amal Abu Aisha is a woman from Gaza Strip who fled her house in Gaza. She shares her worries about displacement and her pregnant daughter Razan who is ready to give birth, but staying in her house without anyone that could look after her or help with the delivery of her baby:
"I do not know what can I do as her husband is fulfilling his medical duty in Gaza hospitals under this difficult situation. I cannot reach her, and she cannot move to hospital under this constant attack and overcrowding of hospitals. I only need to be next to her... this is her first baby. I cannot imagine how she can bear the severe pains of labour alone”.
Riham Jafari, Coordinator of Advocacy and Communication for Palestine said:
"As thousands of Gazans flee in fear of their lives - abandoning their homes and communities - it is deeply concerning to witness the threats to target hospitals and critical infrastructure, an egregious violation of international law and a blatant disregard for human lives.
"We are particularly concerned about the devastating impact on the 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza right now and newborn babies, who are all left without essential medical care and the safety they deserve as they make the impossible choice of fleeing with no guarantee of safety or remaining at risk of almost certain death”.
ActionAid calls for the immediate reversal of the evacuation order and the guarantee of the full protection and safety of civilians.
Notes to editor
ActionAid Palestine Country Director, Nadim Zaghloul, and Wisam Shweiki, Head of Programmes at ActionAid Palestine, and Gemma Guillen Country Manager at ActionAid Spain in Palestine, are available for interview on request.
Contact the ActionAid press office on uk.media@actionaid.org or on 07753 973 486.
About ActionAid
ActionAid is a global federation working with more than 41 million people living in more than 71 of the world’s poorest countries. We want to see a just, fair, and sustainable world, in which everybody enjoys the right to a life of dignity, and freedom from poverty and oppression. We work to achieve social justice and gender equality and to eradicate poverty.