Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) in the United States (co-publishing with the Global Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School [GHRC]) and Physicians for Human Rights -Israel (PHRI) published two independent reports documenting the severe harm to women and children’s health in Gaza since October 7, 2023, when Hamas’ brutal attacks on Israel prompted a massive and destructive Israeli onslaught. Although each report was researched and written independently, the organizations launch them together in light of their shared focus, the powerful accumulation of findings and testimonies, and the conclusions on the urgent needs of women and children in Gaza. PHR, GHRC, and PHRI call on the Israeli government to lift all restrictions on medicine, food, and aid to Gaza and to facilitate immediate access to reproductive health care.
The PHR-GHRC report provides a clinical analysis of the collapse of Gaza’s health system and its medical consequences from the perspective of health care workers, while the PHRI report brings forward Palestinian women’s voices, illustrating the human cost behind the data. Both reports conclude that these harms are not isolated incidents but part of an ongoing pattern of systematic damage to the health of women and their children in Gaza, amounting to reproductive violence.
“Destroying Hope for the Future: Reproductive Violence in Gaza” – the report from PHR and GHRC – is based on 78 interviews with international medical volunteers who worked across Gaza between January and October 2025. The report documents how damage to medical infrastructure and restrictions on the entry of food, medicines, and medical supplies – including obstetric equipment, infant formula, and other essential care – have deprived women and newborns of the right to access life-saving medical services. These actions have led to sharp increases in maternal and neonatal deaths, premature births, miscarriages, and long-term harm to reproductive capacity.
“Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s health infrastructure, combined with untreated malnutrition resulting from restrictions on food and medical supplies including baby formula, has created an environment in which the fundamental biological processes of reproduction and survival have been systematically destroyed, resulting in known and foreseeable harm, pain, suffering, and death,” said Sam Zarifi, JD, LLM, PHR executive director. “Israel must immediately allow food and essential medical material to enter Gaza with a proper medical plan for helping the besieged population.”
Alongside this, the PHRI report (Motherhood Under Fire: How Much Can a Woman Endure?) sheds light on the human dimension through first-person testimonies based on in-depth interviews with pregnant and breastfeeding women in Gaza who were forcibly displaced from their homes and are living under conditions of extreme deprivation. The report is based on interviews with 21 women conducted in Gaza in February 2025, followed by update interviews with the same women in late July 2025. It brings women’s voices to the forefront, giving human faces to the data: accounts of childbirth without anesthesia and under improvised conditions, breastfeeding amid hunger and severe food shortages, and long walks under bombardment to reach basic medical care – care that is often unavailable. These personal stories reveal the heavy physical, psychological, and emotional toll on women forced to make impossible choices between their own survival and the well-being of their children, illustrating how the systematic destruction of living conditions has turned pregnancy and motherhood into extreme risk.
“The severe and ongoing harm to the health and lives of pregnant and breastfeeding women and their children is reflected in every aspect of daily life,” said Lama Bakri, project coordinator in the Occupied Territories Department at Physicians for Human Rights – Israel. “This harm is the systematic result of the collapse of the health care system, the denial of basic living conditions, and a continuous cycle of survival centered on the bare minimum needed to endure.”
“The scale of the loss and trauma faced by women and newborns will last for generations, impacting all aspects of Palestinian life,” said Anjli Parrin, JD, director of GHRC. “International law requires Israel to immediately facilitate aid and support the rebuilding of the health care system. Without it, despite a ceasefire agreement, there will continue to be more preventable deaths, especially of pregnant women and newborns.”
Testimonies from two women featured in the PHRI report (available for media interviews):
Maha Younis, a 20-year-old from Gaza City, was 19 and four months pregnant when her home was bombed and she was trapped under the rubble on her birthday in October 2023. In her testimony, she describes direct injury to her body and health, alongside the lack of basic medical care even after she was rescued:
“I thought I was dead. I couldn’t hear anything and I couldn’t see anything—I was trapped under the rubble.” Maha later describes a premature birth, surgeries performed in the Ammirati hospital without adequate anesthesia, ongoing hunger, and life in a tent without sanitation—an existence in which motherhood becomes a daily struggle for survival.
Nariman Omar Shakoura, 33, a mother of two from Beit Lahia, currently lives with her family in an improvised tent after being displaced repeatedly. In her testimony, she describes pregnancy and childbirth amid the collapse of the health system and a complete absence of safety:
“I was very worried. I kept thinking, how will I give birth when the time comes? There are no hospitals, no transportation, no cars. I was terrified.” Shakoura recounts repeated forced displacement, childbirth under dangerous conditions, and severe shortages of medical care, showing how pregnancy itself becomes life-threatening.
Testimony from an American obstetrician-gynecologist and maternal health expert who volunteered in Gaza in 2025 (de-identified for security reasons):
“The acute shortage of food, nutrition, and prenatal vitamins throughout 2025 was not only an issue for the general population, but for the pregnant population it severely compromised pregnancy outcomes. In the hospital, we had shortages of all our supplies which complicated surgeries and healing, and which made infection control extremely challenging. During my time in Gaza, I witnessed pregnancy losses that were full term, losses at midterm, and early pregnancy losses as well.”
The organizations state that while a fragile ceasefire was signed in October 2025, repeated violations – including the deaths of at least 420 Palestinians – and the lack of any meaningful steps towards accountability for violations of international law in Gaza both threaten prospects for a durable peace in Gaza. Extreme weather and ongoing Israeli restrictions on medicine and food to Gaza to this day continue to cause a crisis for people throughout the Gaza Strip, severely affecting pregnant women, new mothers, and babies. These restrictions have been compounded by the recent Israeli government decision to bar 37 international aid groups from working in Gaza, which play a critical role in saving lives and supporting the heroic local medical staff.
With each day that passes without adequate food and access to medical care for pregnant and lactating women and newborns, Israel diminishes the reproductive capacity, safety, and autonomy of Palestinians in Gaza.
—
For additional information:
PHR Media Team: Tel. +1-917-679-0110, e-mail: media@phr.org
Ran Yaron, Spokesperson, PHRI, Tel. +972-54-668-0857, e-mail: ranyaron79@gmail.com
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.