ActionAid Palestine said that tens of thousands of pregnant women are suffering from severe hunger due to the escalating food crisis in Gaza, and mothers are also suffering from malnutrition, which limits their ability to breastfeed their newborns.

ActionAid added in a statement issued today, Monday, that 71% of the population of Gaza currently suffers from acute hunger, while 98% of the population does not have enough food, according to the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory.

It pointed out that this crisis affects pregnant women, mothers and their young children severely, indicating that there are 50,000 pregnant women and 68,000 breastfeeding women in Gaza, according to recent United Nations data, and they need immediate life-saving preventive, therapeutic and nutritional interventions, and 7,685 children at the age of five suffers from life-threatening wasting, making them vulnerable to delayed growth, illness, and death in severe cases, while more than 4,000 children are classified as suffering from severe wasting, and they need life-saving treatment.

It explained that the average amount of water that one person in the Gaza Strip receives is 1.5 liters per day to cover all his needs for drinking, bathing, and cleaning, although the minimum that one person needs is 15 liters to survive, but pregnant and breastfeeding women also need 7.5. additional liters of drinking water daily to maintain their health and the health of their children.

Action Aid reported the case of a mother (Khitam) of five children, including a newborn, who was displaced to a school in Deir al-Balah, and does not have food to feed her children, saying: “There is no water or food to eat. My little daughter suffers from a skin rash due to lack of hygiene.” "Here, our situation is very difficult. How can we drink water? We wonder if there is enough for us and the children? Of course not! There is no clean water. We can barely make ends meet. I also have four other children who have wanted to eat since the morning, but there is no bread."

Khitam, who was displaced from her home due to the bombing just two days after she gave birth, adds, “Evacuation orders were issued just two days after I gave birth. I was very tired in the postpartum stage after I left the hospital with continued bleeding. I was carrying my daughter. We were walking under missiles and bombing.” We sit and relax for a while on the sidewalk and the streets.”

ActionAid Palestine pointed out that despite the enormous needs in the Gaza Strip, the amount of aid entering the Strip is still not sufficient at all. An average of 100 trucks of humanitarian supplies are currently entering through the Rafah crossing every day, and despite the opening of the Kerem Shalom crossing last week, but only 79 trucks entered the day after it opened, a drop in the ocean compared to the 500 trucks of aid and other supplies that entered the Gaza Strip every day before October 7.

Reham Jaafari, communications and advocacy officer at ActionAid Palestine, said: “We do not have words to describe the extent of the horror that the residents of the Gaza Strip are enduring. All residents suffer from hunger, but pregnant and breastfeeding women and their children suffer the most. The stories we hear are horrific. Mothers are forced to watch their children helplessly screaming and crying from hunger, and they are completely unable to do anything.”

She added: "Things may get terribly worse. There is no time to waste. Every day hundreds of people die in Gaza due to bombing, and soon hundreds will also die from hunger and disease. Only an immediate and permanent ceasefire will prevent any more deaths from occurring at all."