The agency warned on X about a growth in the number of babies born with low weight and “others who suffer from wasting and stunted growth,” and insisted on the need to reach a ceasefire in the Strip to provide a respite for Gazans, who have been living under Israeli bombs for more than nine months.
UN Women reported recently that at least 557,000 women in the Gaza Strip suffer from severe food insecurity and various gender vulnerabilities, and warned that “the situation is particularly worrying for mothers and adult women, who often prioritize feeding others over themselves.”
The institution noted that this population sector suffers from limited services, while their health and food security are compromised and they face big risks of being subjected to all types of gender violence.
According to the UN agency’s survey, 70 percent of mothers and adult women reported weight loss in the past 30 days, and more than half experience frequent dizziness.
More than 80 percent of those interviewed depend on food assistance as their main source of food; however, 87.3 percent believe that aid is not distributed fairly on the basis of family size.
Additionally, 83.5 percent stated that the assistance did not meet the needs of their households.
A few days ago, the NGO ActionAid stated that food shortages in the Gaza Strip especially affect pregnant women and women with small children.
Reham Jaafari, communications and advocacy officer for ActionAid International, warned that pregnant women need a varied and nutritious diet to maintain their health and that of their children, but many of them in Gaza have nothing to eat, and stressed that the lack of food considerably affects their abilities to safely give birth and breastfeed their newborns, many of whom are born with dangerously low weights.
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