Israel must urgently allow food, medicine, and aid to reach people in Gaza, notwithstanding the downgrading of food insecurity conditions in Gaza to Level 4 (Emergency) from Level 5 (Catastrophe) by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) today, said Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and the Global Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School (GHRC).
PHR and GHRC have interviewed scores of clinicians in Gaza in 2025 who witnessed the severe impact on pregnant and nursing women as well as newborns as a result of Israel’s restrictions on food and medicine as well as the devastation of the healthcare system.
“Despite the tenuous ceasefire and this recent reclassification, the health crisis in Gaza has not abated. Pregnant women and babies in particular still face life-threatening conditions and lifelong harms due to barriers to food aid and medical care imposed since October 2025,” said Sam Zarifi, JD, PHR executive director. “Recent data shows some positive trends in malnutrition rates in Gaza, but specific measures are still needed to ensure pregnant women and newborns can access sufficient and specialized nutrition to treat malnutrition and medical care to ensure future pregnancies can be safe and healthy.”
UN reports indicate that since the October ceasefire, Israeli restrictions and limited access to food and other humanitarian aid, including medical supplies, have continued. In October 2025, UNICEF reported that the UN agency admitted 8,300 pregnant and breastfeeding women for treatment for acute malnutrition and identified 9,300 children under 5 years of age with acute malnutrition, down from 14,363 children in August. While the data released by UNICEF indicates that rates of acute malnutrition in Gaza are trending down and updated analysis by the IPC points to improving food security, for pregnant, postpartum, and lactating women and their newborns, the crisis is far from over.
Further exacerbating the harms are winter storms, and the lack of access to adequate shelter and heating supplies, which have also been restricted by Israel. Frigid conditions and flooding further endanger newborns, with the UN reporting that a two-week-old infant had died of hypothermia.
Sustained acute malnutrition produces severe and often irreversible health consequences, with pregnant women and children facing particular risks. For pregnant women, malnutrition increases the likelihood of miscarriage, stillbirth, maternal mortality, and severe complications during pregnancy, labor and delivery. Infants born to malnourished mothers are more likely to have low birth weights, which significantly elevates their risk of death and complications with lifelong consequences. For children, prolonged malnutrition leads to stunted physical and cognitive development and weakened immune systems that increase vulnerability to life-threatening infections. These harms extend beyond immediate survival, affecting entire generations through impaired learning capacity and reduced long-term health outcomes.
There is an urgent need to restore and repair medical services, remedy malnutrition, and support people living in Gaza with rehabilitation and recovery. PHR and GHRC call for:
- Immediate action to ensure unrestricted humanitarian access so that food, clean water, fuel, and medical supplies can enter Gaza at the scale necessary to meet the health and nutritional needs, restore reproductive and neonatal medical services, and reverse the negative impacts of acute malnutrition.
- Prioritization of high-dose micronutrient supplementation protocols – specifically for iron, folate, and calcium – for all women of reproductive age to reverse the physiological effects of prolonged acute malnutrition.
- Access to heating supplies and adequate shelter, including tents, blankets and vital medical supplies to protect the population from the impact of winter conditions
- Preparation of facilities and staff to manage refeeding syndrome, including developing protocols for gradual nutritional rehabilitation, electrolyte monitoring, and medical stabilization, and ensuring that therapeutic foods, micronutrient supplements, and therapeutic milks for infants with severe wasting are readily available.
- Establishment of clear and consistent medical evacuation corridors for critical patients, including high-risk pregnant women and others, to hospitals outside of Gaza for treatment that is not currently available locally.
- Lifting “dual use” restrictions on supplies with medical end use in line with international standards and establish a transparent process for the review of materials requiring special clearance to improve health care access.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a New York-based advocacy organization that uses science and medicine to prevent mass atrocities and severe human rights violations. Learn more here.