Geneva, Switzerland:

The United Nations on Friday condemned the deliberate destruction of complex and inaccessible medical equipment at Gaza’s troubled hospitals and maternity wards, further exacerbating the risks faced by women already giving birth in “inhumane and unimaginable conditions.”

Dominic Allen, representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in the State of Palestine, said a recent UN-led mission to 10 hospitals in Gaza found many “in ruins” and only a few capable of providing care. Any level of maternal health care.

He said it “broke my heart” what the team found inside the Nasser Hospital building in the southern city of Khan Younis, which has long been besieged by Israeli forces during operations there.

He told reporters in Geneva via video link from Jerusalem that he saw “medical equipment being vandalized, ultrasound – you know, this is a very important tool to help ensure safe delivery – cables had been cut”.

“Screens of complex medical equipment such as ultrasound and other screens were smashed,” he added.

The World Health Organization described the difficulties of bringing such equipment into Gaza even before Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israeli territory and the outbreak of the current war.

“Purposeful and wanton destruction”

Dominic Allen warned that this “deliberate and wanton destruction of the maternity ward”, combined with other damage and a lack of water, sanitation and electricity, was making it difficult to build and operate the second most important hospital in the Palestinian territories. more complicated. Again “providing a lifeline”.

Meanwhile, at Al-Khair, another specialized maternity hospital in Khan Younis, “there didn’t seem to be any medical equipment available,” he said, lamenting the “utter silence” in the delivery room.

“They are supposed to be a life-giving place, but they have a terrible sense of death.”

Only 10 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are currently partially operational.

Dominic Allen said there are now only three facilities capable of assisting the roughly 180 women who give birth every day in Gaza, about 15 percent of whom suffer complications and require extensive care.

As a result, hospitals capable of providing such care face severe capacity constraints.

He said the Emirates Hospital in the south is currently Gaza’s main maternity hospital and supports up to 60 births every day, including up to 12 caesarean sections.

Dominic Allen said women were being discharged from hospital within hours of giving birth and “less than a day after caesarean section”, given the huge pressure on the facility, stressing that “this increases the risk”.

“Total paralysis”

He said there were clear risks associated with a large number of complex surgeries related to “malnutrition, dehydration and fear” that could impact a woman’s ability to deliver safely and carry her baby safely to term.

A doctor at the Emirates Hospital told Allen “he would never see a normal-sized baby again”.

He said the United Nations Population Fund had “deep concerns about the ability to provide postpartum care” amid a “complete paralysis” of Gaza’s health system.

He said the agency was deploying midwives and midwifery kits to drop-in centers set up in schools to help fill the gap.

The current war began after Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on October 7 that killed 1,170 people, mostly civilians, in southern Israel, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

The militants also took about 250 hostages. Israel estimates that 129 people remain in Gaza, 34 of whom are presumed dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 34,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children. according to the health ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)