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I cannot unsee what I have seen’ in Gaza
A UN Population Fund official warns that 11,500 pregnant women are among the one in four Palestinians currently starving in war-devastated Gaza.
Andrew Saberton said “starvation is particularly catastrophic” for both mothers and their newborn children, with premature and low birth weight babies now making up about 70 percent of newborns in Gaza. One in three pregnancies is classified as high risk.
“In Gaza, I was not fully prepared for what I saw. One can’t be. The sheer extent of the devastation looked like the set of a dystopian film. Unfortunately, it is not fiction,” Saberton told reporters at UN headquarters.
“There is no other way to put it: Gaza has been flattened, mile upon mile of rubble and dust with few buildings left intact. This is not collateral damage, and I cannot unsee what I have seen.”
‘There is no normal birth in Gaza now’
We have more from Andrew Saberton, a UN Population Fund official, who spoke a short while ago at the United Nations:
- Malnutrition in Gaza “will have generational effects” on both Palestinian mothers and newborns, “likely to result in ever longer-lasting care and problems throughout the life of the baby”.
- Many pregnant women do not have access to a hospital to deliver their children. “We have stories of women giving birth actually in the rubble, beside the road.”
- More than 50 percent of youth and about 40 percent of adults are expected to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder: “This is going to take generations to clear. This is a long-term recovery.”
- Many Palestinian women and girls do not have access to menstrual pads or sanitary towels. “We have 700,000 women and girls for each month the menstrual cycle is a nightmare. There may be no privacy. There may be no sanitation. There’s no clean water, and there’s no pads.”
