Statement by UNICEF Middle East and North Africa Regional Director Adele Khodr on the decimation of newborn care in the Gaza Strip

AMMAN, 5 November 2024 – “The Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza has become a besieged war zone. Its neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), the last remaining in the north, has reportedly been damaged in heavy attacks in recent days.

“Access to the hospital is incredibly difficult but reports indicate that children who were treated there have been killed and injured in these attacks and its oxygen and water supplies have been damaged, disrupting critical care for the few still clinging to life inside.

“Any newborn baby fighting to sustain its breaths from inside a hospital incubator is entirely defenceless and entirely reliant on specialist medical care and equipment to survive.

“In the Gaza Strip, at least 4,000 babies are estimated to have been cut off from lifesaving newborn care in the past year because of sustained attacks on the hospitals earnestly trying to keep them alive, because electricity supply has been cut off and because the little fuel delivered to power hospitals is woefully inadequate. This has been especially deadly in the northern parts of the Gaza Strip.

“Before the war began in October 2023, there were eight NICUs in the Gaza Strip with a total of 178 incubators. Most of these units had recently received new equipment, including incubators, from UNICEF. Even then, the NICU capacity in Gaza was insufficient to meet the high demand for specialised newborn care.

“Today, three of these NICU units are destroyed – all in northern Gaza – and the number of incubators available has plummeted by 70 per cent to about 54 incubators across the Strip.

“In the northern parts of Gaza, the number of incubators is down from 105 at the three NICUs to just nine, all at Kamal Adwan hospital. After the heavy attacks sustained by the hospital in recent days, it is unclear if they remain functional.

“At least 6,000 newborn babies need intensive care in the Gaza Strip every year. However, the true number could be higher with doctors telling us that the proportion of babies born premature, undernourished, or with developmental issues and other health complications has risen as the war impacts their foetal development, birth, and care.

“Because aid and commercial supplies are not permitted to enter at scale, and flow to everyone who needs them across the Gaza Strip, sufficient nutritious food is severely lacking for pregnant and lactating mothers, resulting in increased preterm births.”

“Health care facilities are protected under International Humanitarian Law, as are providers and humanitarian personnel. “Vulnerable newborns and sick and wounded children in need of intensive care are being killed in tents, in incubators and in the arms of their parents. That this hasn’t galvanized enough political will to end the war, represents a fundamental crisis of our humanity.”

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