By Ramadan Abed
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza (Reuters) – Gazan mother Rana Salah hugs her one-month-old daughter Milana in a sweltering refugee tent, and talks about the guilt she feels for bringing her child into a war zone. and suffering.
“If it were up to me, I wouldn't get pregnant or give birth during the war because life is completely different; we have never lived this life before,” she said, speaking at the camp in Deir al-Balah. in the center of the Gaza Strip.
“I gave birth twice before, life was better and easier for me and the child. Now, I feel like I have sinned both for me and the child because we deserve a better life than this.”
Milana was born in a hospital tent by caesarean section due to complications with Salah's pregnancy. This family could not return home because of the conflict, moving from one tent to another.
Milana is one of about 20,000 children born in Gaza last year, according to UNICEF figures.
The current war, the deadliest episode in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 people, according to Israeli statistics.
Israeli airstrikes and retaliatory artillery have reduced large swaths of Palestine to rubble and more than 41,500 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks, according to the Gaza health ministry. Most of Gaza's 2.3 million residents have been displaced.
DISCOVERY ACCIDENT
Salah fans Milana and cardboard and say that heat is bad for a child's skin.
“Instead of going back to our house, we keep going from one tent to another… where diseases are rife and the water is dirty.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that post-natal services have been severely reduced in Gaza, so women with complications cannot get the care they need like their babies.
Rick Brennan, WHO emergency director for the Eastern Mediterranean region, said malnutrition is a threat to newborns, especially if their mothers are unable to breastfeed, as there is no way to get breast milk.
Displacement and constant movement disturbs the newborn and puts it at risk of infection, she said.
Manar Abu Jarad lives in a school shelter run by the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA). Her youngest daughter Sahar was born on September 4, also by caesarean section. Her husband was killed in the war.
When she learned that she would need an operation to give birth, she worried about how she would take care of her other children.
“I have three daughters. I started shouting… How can I carry the buckets (of water)? How can I wash my daughters? How can I help them and my husband is not with me, he was martyred.”
The children are rocking Sahar's baby, who is wrapped in a cot next to Jarad.
“I have reached the point where I can't bear the burden of this girl… I thank God that I got help here,” she said. He borrowed what he knows from the family and uses one diaper a day for the child as he has no extra money.
“I don't have money to give him diapers or milk.”
Jarad longs for the war to end and to return to his home, even if it's just a tent next to his former home.
“The important thing is to go home. We have had enough of the fatigue we face here, we have had enough of carrying buckets, and the dirt in the bathrooms. It is really difficult and really tiring for us. Diseases are everywhere.”
