{"id":3999,"date":"2025-10-06T15:14:37","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T15:14:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/?p=3999"},"modified":"2025-10-06T15:14:37","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T15:14:37","slug":"gazan-mothers-birth-next-palestinian-generation-amid-genocide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/?p=3999","title":{"rendered":"Gazan Mothers Birth Next Palestinian Generation Amid Genocide"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n \u00a0Illustration: Mala Kumar<\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Taqwa Ahmed Al-Wawi is a 19-year-old writer and poet from Gaza. She is currently a second-year English literature student at the Islamic University of Gaza.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The first bombs<\/span> of the current genocide fell during Tasneem\u2019s final weeks of pregnancy. When Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, she was 25 years old, seven months pregnant, and eagerly awaiting her third child.<\/p>\n

In Gaza, Tasneem had already lived her whole young life under Israeli surveillance, confinement, and violence. But as the bombs rained down on October 7 \u2014\u00a0in what Israel claimed was retaliation<\/a> for the nearly 1,200 Israelis killed that day, but has since become a two-year-long genocide, killing at least 66,000 Palestinians\u00a0 \u2014 it was clear her child\u2019s generation would be born into a new level of horror.<\/p>\n

There were no calm nurses by the time Tasneem went into labor with her son, Ezz Aldin. The hospital was overcrowded with no steady electricity. Tasneem labored for hours in the barely functioning hospital, and when she gave birth, there was no food to help her recover. Diapers were nearly impossible to find. Weakened and hungry, she breastfed her son. It was December 25, 2023.<\/p>\n

Bombs are still falling on Gaza, despite a pending peace deal. As the Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, moves into its third year of trying to ethnically cleanse Gaza, many Palestinian women still push to bring the next generation into the world. They give birth not in hospitals with clean beds and available staff, but in overcrowded, collapsing clinics, under drones and bombs, amid the deadliest genocide Gaza has seen in decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is the story of my sisters, and of other Palestinian women who brought children into a world that was falling apart.<\/p>\n

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Doaa wasn\u2019t pregnant<\/span> when the first bombs dropped. Like everyone else, she was trying to survive. When her home was bombed on January 14, 2024, the windows shattered, the walls cracked, and the air was filled with smoke and dust. Though she wasn\u2019t physically harmed, the emotional toll was enormous. A few weeks later, amid her family\u2019s displacement \u2014 from a small flat, to a tent, to a tiny apartment \u2014 she found out she was pregnant. Living with a child growing inside her, under constant fear of sudden death, the sounds of nearby strikes would jolt her awake at night.<\/p>\n

When her labor began \u2014 on October 28, 2024, just over a year into the genocide \u2014 she was rushed to an already overwhelmed hospital. She clung to the thin mattress through waves of pain, until her son Hossam was born: small, fragile, but alive. No special food awaited her. No clothes. No comfort. Still, she held him close, nursing him through hunger and fear.<\/p>\n

The World Health Organization reports that 10 percent of Gaza\u2019s population and up to 20 percent of pregnant women suffer moderate to severe malnutrition. Over 5,100 children were admitted to malnutrition programs in July alone, including 800 in critical condition. According to M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res, 25 percent of pregnant and breastfeeding women are malnourished. Mothers face shortages of nutritious food essential for recovery and breastfeeding, as iron-rich foods, fresh fruit, and vegetables are nearly impossible to find.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat have these children done to deserve being born in these conditions of genocide and famine? Why can the world not see them?\u201d asked my friend\u2019s aunt, who gave birth on October 6, 2024. A single pack of diapers cost $600 at the time. Today, it\u2019s 400 shekels, or about $120 \u2014 still impossibly out of reach. Most have to make do with a plastic bag tied up with string.<\/p>\n

Her baby, Layan, had to drink formula. Many babies born in Gaza under the genocide do. Their mothers \u2014 starving, dehydrated, terrified \u2014 can\u2019t make breast milk. When formula is available, it\u2019s at inflated prices: 200 shekels per can. Most of the time, it simply isn\u2019t there.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhat have these children done to deserve being born in these conditions of genocide and famine?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

Layan is now a year old. From the age of nine months, children are supposed to start eating soft food: mashed rice, boiled zucchini, fruit, grapes, melon, yogurt. But there\u2019s nothing. Nothing to feed him. Nothing to grow on.<\/p>\n

Dana was born in a tent by the sea, to a mother suffering from severe malnutrition. The family had been forced to leave their home in Khan Younis, and Dana\u2019s mother had gone days without proper food.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey told her mother she might give birth to a child with disabilities because of her lack of vitamins,\u201d said Aya, Dana\u2019s cousin.<\/p>\n

The pregnancy was grueling. \u201cI could barely get out of bed; there was hardly any food,\u201d Dana\u2019s mother recalled. Every day was a struggle against fatigue, hunger, and uncertainty. Her body weak, her mind anxious, she carried on, driven by hope for her baby. And against all odds, Dana arrived healthy \u2014 a small miracle in a world that seemed to offer none.<\/p>\n

But the tents where displaced Palestinians reside are not fit places for children. Flies, mosquitoes, rats; the insects bite, sting, infect. A mosquito bite on a baby\u2019s cheek swells for a week. Medical care is nearly impossible to find.<\/p>\n

And the sewage system? A two-meter-deep pit in the ground, uncovered. There have been cases of children falling in.<\/p>\n

In the heat, small bodies burn with fever. Skin diseases \u2014 itching, peeling, red blotches that blister \u2014 spread quickly. There are no creams. No medicine. Their immune systems are too weak to fight anything off.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had nothing but each other,\u201d Dana\u2019s mother said. Relatives, neighbors, and small acts of kindness became their lifeline, helping them prepare for the birth and supporting them through the first fragile days.<\/p>\n

Now, Dana is thriving. But some babies don\u2019t survive the winter. The tents freeze, and so do they.<\/p>\n

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