With a seven-month pregnancy weighing heavily on her body, Palestinian woman Hadeel al-Madani lifts a water gallon and moves around inside her tent, carrying out daily tasks that Israel’s genocidal war has turned into exhausting burdens that fuel fears for her unborn child.
Laundry, cooking, washing dishes and cleaning the living space were once simple tasks that took little time. Today, they require hours of effort that start from fetching and carrying water, to washing clothes by hand, and lighting fires to cook food.
Palestinian women in Gaza perform these tasks under harsh humanitarian conditions, amid summer heat trapped inside tents made of poor-quality plastic fabric, turning them during the daytime into places almost impossible to live in.
The hardship has been worsened by the continued power outage since Israel began its genocidal war on October 8, 2023.
For pregnant women, the effects go beyond daily exhaustion. Fears are growing over the loss of unborn children amid repeated displacement, malnutrition, difficulty accessing medical care, heavy physical labor and extreme heat inside tents.
Figures from Gaza’s Health Ministry show 3,958 miscarriages were recorded in the first half of 2026, at a rate of 208.5 cases per 1,000 live births, compared with 64 cases per 1,000 live births in the second half of 2025, which is a 3.3-fold increase.
Fear for the unborn
Madani lives with constant anxiety over her fetus as she spends her days doing exhausting work without running water, electricity or cooling in a life she describes as “tragic” inside the tents.
In one corner of her tent, she checks the medicines she keeps among her few belongings, fearing they may be affected by the intense heat trapped inside the shelter or by rodents hiding among the items and in the tent soil.
“Our life is difficult. We cannot adapt. Life is tragic and very hard for pregnant women in tents,” Madani told Anadolu.
“I fear my child may have deformities or problems because of the harsh conditions and the heat,” she said. “Sometimes the weather outside the tent is cooler than inside it.”
Birth surrounded by fear
In another tent, Palestinian woman Doaa al-Najjar is waiting to give birth within days after entering the ninth month of pregnancy, while suffering health complications caused by the living conditions in the tent.
“The heat of the tent affects me severely and raises my body temperature,” Najjar told Anadolu, saying she is often forced to seek medical treatment.
Najjar said she went to a health clinic last Thursday after feeling her temperature rise, raising fears that she could be suffering from a health problem that might affect her fetus.
“I feel afraid for the pregnancy, and I’m affected by these conditions,” she said. “I’m waiting for the baby to come safely.”
Najjar compares her current pregnancy with pregnancies before the war, saying that before the war, pregnant women had food, peace of mind and basic needs.
Today, she cannot find anything needed for her expected newborn, no suitable living conditions, no bed, no clothes, no diapers and no milk.
Although her delivery is approaching, Najjar is still thinking about how to secure these supplies while her family struggles to provide basic daily needs.
She is also haunted by the fear of rodents and insects and the possible danger they pose to her baby, especially without a raised bed that could protect the child.
“I fear for him from mice, rats, insects and the heat of the tent,” she said. “He needs a bed that protects him from them.”
Multiple hardships
At Al-Helou International Hospital in the Al-Nasr neighbourhood west of Gaza City, dozens of pregnant women wait for their turn to undergo examinations and check on the health of their unborn children.
“Pregnant women faced multiple hardships during the war, including repeated displacement, the destruction of homes and the collapse of primary healthcare due to the destruction of hospitals and medical facilities,” said Iyad Abu Hosaira, head of the hospital’s obstetrics and gynecology department.
“Pregnant women lived during and after the war in places unfit for living, such as tents that lack running water and electricity,” he said.
“They were also forced to carry out exhausting tasks, such as lifting water gallons from one place to another, which exposed the lives of fetuses to danger,” Abu Hosaira said.
He added that these conditions caused health problems for pregnant women, including anaemia, while Health Ministry figures showed miscarriages in the first half of 2026 increased more than threefold compared with the second half of 2025.
Miscarriages
Health Ministry data reflect the expanding risks facing pregnant women in Gaza despite the ceasefire agreement.
The ministry recorded around 3,958 miscarriages between January and June 2026.
An infographic published by the ministry on July 20 showed that the miscarriage rate in the first half of this year reached 208.5 per 1,000 live births, compared with 64 per 1,000 live births in the second half of 2025.
April recorded the highest monthly miscarriage rate at 377.25 cases per 1,000 live births, while June saw the highest number of cases, with 790 miscarriages.
The data showed that 73.6 percent of miscarriages occurred before the 13th week of pregnancy, while 26.4 percent occurred between weeks 13 and 24. It also showed that 57.1 percent of pregnant women registered in 2025 suffered from anaemia, compared with 42.9 percent who did not.
Israel’s attacks on Gaza have devastated the health system, damaging hospitals, medical facilities and medicine warehouses. By mid-July, only 44 percent of pre-war health service points were functioning, while the WHO says no hospital is operating at full capacity and more than half of essential medicines are out of stock.
