'Struggle, struggle, struggle.' What new and expecting mothers are facing in Gaza
DEBBIE ELLIOTT, HOST:
The U.N. estimates about 20,000 babies have been born in Gaza since Israel began its offensive in response to the October 7 Hamas attacks. Families in Gaza are navigating life with their newborns amid daily airstrikes, continued ground fighting and a growing lack of food and water. Only about a third of the territory's hospitals are partially functioning. Illness is rampant. And according to Gazan health officials, over 20 children have died of starvation since the war in Gaza began. NPR's Elissa Nadworny brings us the story of what new moms in Gaza are facing.
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY COOING)
ELISSA NADWORNY, BYLINE: In a tent in Rafah, 5-month-old Manal has just woken up from a nap.
LIKAA SALEH: (Speaking Arabic).
NADWORNY: "Have you made a poo-poo?" her mother, 24-year-old Likaa Saleh asks. She opens the flimsy diaper that was hard to find and is several sizes too small.
SALEH: (Speaking Arabic).
NADWORNY: The skin on Manal's tush and legs is rashed and peeling where the material rubs, a skin irritation that won't go away.
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY CRYING)
SALEH: (Speaking Arabic).
NADWORNY: "Don't cry, I'll put some cream on that," she tells Manal.
SALEH: (Speaking Arabic).
NADWORNY: "You're a good girl," Saleh tells her. She sent me these recordings by phone since journalists don't have access to Gaza. Saleh used to live in an affluent area of Gaza City in northern Gaza, a home with all the supplies she'd need to welcome her baby. Now they don't have a bed. It's dirty and cold. And Saleh has trouble finding diapers, baby clothes, milk and food.
SALEH: (Through interpreter) I can't teach her to eat or feed her because there's no food and no vegetables. There's not enough milk for her.
NADWORNY: Saleh gave birth to Manal a month after the war in Gaza began. The C-section under air attacks was what Saleh called the worst moments of her life, and each day of those next five months has gotten harder and harder.
SALEH: (Through interpreter) I can't sleep at night because all I'm doing is thinking and I'm heartbroken.
NADWORNY: The U.N. estimates that in Rafah, where Saleh and baby Manal are living, a tenth of children under 2 are suffering from the most severe malnutrition. But as you move further north and farther away from the trickle of aid coming in, conditions worsen. In northern Gaza, a third of children under two are experiencing a life-threatening lack of food.
HIBA TIBI: Those who pay the highest price in war are mothers and kids.
NADWORNY: Hiba Tibi is a program director for CARE, an aid organization that helps women and children in Gaza. CARE's partners in the north of Gaza report women in shelters are burying their newborns who have died.
TIBI: They see in almost all the shelters babies that are born and dying before even getting registered. So they are not even counted in life.
NADWORNY: The new mothers she's talked to are worried this will happen to them, too.
TIBI: They become less and less hopeful with the change of a situation. They are giving up.
NADWORNY: Instead of counting milestones for their babies like smiling, tummy time or rolling over, they're counting the hours until they might lose their babies to starvation, infection, or illness.
TIBI: And they even refer to the fact that those who lost their lives were the lucky ones. They were the lucky ones.
NADWORNY: She can't shake what one new mom told her recently.
TIBI: She told me, I wish I never gave birth. I wish I didn't have this kid to come to life.
SHEREHAN ABDEL HADI: (Speaking Arabic).
NADWORNY: My son needs the milk, says Sherehan Abdel Hadi, who gave birth to her son Sanad at the end of December.
ABDEL HADI: (Speaking Arabic).
NADWORNY: He cries all the time. While pregnant, Abdel Hadi and her family fled on foot from Gaza City.
(SOUNDBITE OF RATTLE RATTLING)
NADWORNY: They're now living at an uncle's house in Deir El Balah in Gaza's middle section.
ABDEL HADI: (Speaking Arabic).
NADWORNY: There are daily bombings and airstrikes. The noise from planes up above is constant.
ABDEL HADI: (Speaking Arabic).
NADWORNY: "We are afraid all the time," she says.
ABDEL HADI: (Speaking Arabic).
NADWORNY: And the noise makes it hard for Sanad to sleep, so does their crowded living situation - more than a dozen in the same room, sleeping three to a mattress. She's worried that baby Sanad is getting sick.
ABDEL HADI: (Speaking Arabic).
NADWORNY: There's no hot water to bathe him in. The only diapers she can find are too big and they leak.
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY CRYING)
NADWORNY: Back in Rafah, Likaa Saleh is trying to get 5-month-old Manal to eat something.
SALEH: (Speaking Arabic).
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY CRYING)
NADWORNY: She's boiled potatoes. She doesn't have money to purchase anything else. She worries constantly about her daughter's future and the world she's brought her into. Saleh prays that someday she will live a life of peace and safety away from war, away from hunger.
Elissa Nadworny, NPR News, Tel Aviv, with reporting by Abu Bakr Bashir in London.
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