Gaza’s Newborns Suffer as War Drives Severe Malnutrition

A newborn at Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City. Aid agencies say that Israeli aid restrictions have depleted hospitals and "starved and stressed" mothers.

Mothers left starving in Gaza are now giving birth to underweight or premature babies who either die in intensive care units or struggle to survive as they endure acute malnutrition, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Tuesday.

Speaking from the shattered enclave, UNICEF Communication Manager Tess Ingram said that at least 165 children have reportedly died “painful, preventable deaths” related to malnutrition during the war between Hamas fighters and Israel.

A lesser-known crisis is acute hunger among pregnant and breastfeeding women and “the devastating domino effect” this lack of nutrition has on thousands of newborns.

“In Gaza’s hospitals I have met several newborns who weighed less than one kilogramme, their tiny chests heaving with the effort of staying alive,” Ms Ingram said.

Born into danger

Speaking to journalists in Geneva via video link, she explained that low-birthweight infants are about 20 times more likely to die than infants of normal weight.

The UNICEF spokesperson noted that before the war in 2022, an average of 250 babies per month—about five per cent—were born weighing less than 2.5 kilograms, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.

In the first half of 2025, even with fewer births, that proportion rose to 10 per cent, or about 300 babies per month, surging to 460 per month in the three months before the ceasefire.
That amounts to 15 a day—almost double the pre-war average.

“Low birthweight is generally caused by poor maternal nutrition, increased maternal stress and limited antenatal care,” Ms Ingram explained.
“In Gaza, we witness all three, and the response is not moving fast enough or at the scale required.”

Reality of war

She added that in October alone, 8,300 pregnant and breastfeeding women were admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition, “in a place where there was no discernible malnutrition among this group before October 2023”.

“This pattern is a grave warning, and it will likely result in low-birthweight babies being born in the Gaza Strip for months to come,” she said, adding, “This is not over.”

The UN has responded by replacing incubators, ventilators and other life-saving equipment destroyed in the conflict. UNICEF has also provided supplements to tens of thousands of pregnant and breastfeeding women, screened young children for acute malnutrition and enrolled them in treatment.

But to improve the response, more aid urgently needs to enter the Gaza Strip.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Monday that “persistent impediments” to reaching the most vulnerable include insecurity, customs clearance challenges, delays and denials of cargo at crossings. Aid teams also report limited routes for transporting supplies within the Strip.

Rafah call

Opening the Rafah crossing in southern Gaza could help increase the flow of humanitarian trucks and reduce the rising malnutrition among children, Ms Ingram said.

“We really need to see all types of aid come in, particularly nutritious food through commercial routes as well,” she added, emphasising that local markets must be restocked so prices can fall and essential items—such as fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy—become affordable again.

Ms Ingram stressed that the two-month-old ceasefire “should offer families safety, not more loss”, noting that more than 70 children have been killed since it began on 10 October.

“Generations of families, including those being born now into this ceasefire, have been forever altered by what was inflicted upon them,” she said, describing the generational effects of the conflict on mothers and infants that she witnesses “almost every day in hospitals, in nutrition clinics, in family tents”.

“It is less visible than the blood and injury, but it is ubiquitous,” she added.

Ms Ingram insisted that the “domino effect from mother to child”—the impact of malnutrition, stress and displacement on pregnant women and newborns—should have been prevented.

“No child should be scarred by war before they have taken their first breath,” she said, pointing to “the brutal reality” of the conflict and “Israeli aid restrictions, which depleted hospitals and starved and stressed mothers.”

“So much suffering could have been prevented if international humanitarian law had been respected,” she concluded.