Wafa’s waters broke while she slept in a flooded tent – with no signal to call an ambulance. She was carried in the rain on her mattress by family and neighbours before being transferred to a car that took her to a medical point in al-Mawasi in the southern Gaza Strip.
She gave birth without painkillers, undergoing a cleaning procedure without anesthesia for fear of a haemorrhage.
“I gave birth to my child to the sound of shelling,” says the mother-of-two.
Thousands of other women and children in Gaza are subject to the same fate as healthcare support is dire despite a ceasefire. More than 400 people have died in the aftermath of the peace deal, including an 11-year-old girl killed in her home on Thursday.
A recent Unicef report revealed a 75 per cent increase in infant mortality as“thousands of mothers who’ve been left starving [by the war inside Gaza] are now giving birth to underweight or premature babies who die in intensive care units or struggle to survive acute malnutrition”.
Last week, Israel banned 37 international aid organisations from operating in the strip, including Oxfam, Save the Children and Medicine Sans Frontieres (MSF). MSF delivers one in three of Gaza’s babies, and experts warn that immediate action must be taken to prevent a catastrophe.
It has prompted more than 100 leading members of the arts, including Dames Judi Dench, Imelda Staunton, Joanna Lumley, Sienna Miller, Suranne Jones and singer Paloma Faith, to sign a letter urging popular online platform Mumsnet to join them in demanding urgent government action ensuring maternity care is accessible in Gaza.
“While sharing the magic of Christmas with our children, it was heartbreaking to see images of little boys and girls just like ours in flooded tents and without food or warmth or medical support in Gaza, after everything they’ve already been through,” the letter, reads.
It calls on the UK government to insist Israel allows the entry of mobile maternity clinics currently waiting in Egypt, full access for independent NGOs including Oxfam, Save the Children and Medical Aid for Palestinians to deliver more than 6,500 trucks of aid waiting to be let into Gaza, and the delivery of sanitary pads.
The Israeli military body Cogat, which controls Gaza's crossings and co-ordinates aid deliveries, has said that the NGOs facing suspension "did not bring aid into Gaza throughout the current ceasefire". It has claimed that "even in the past” before the ceasefire begain 12 weeks ago “their combined contribution amounted to only about 1% of the total aid volume".
Mumsnet told The Independent that it has received the letter and are arranging for a meeting with Dame Judi and other signatories to discuss the issue.
Wafa still lives in the tent where she carried her newborn baby – named Zain – several kilometres in the pouring rain half an hour after his birth. Two weeks later the area was struck by missiles that killed several family members, including her mother and niece. It left her father severely injured.
“From the shock, fear, and lack of food, my milk dried up,” she says of the experience. A doctor prescribed formula but her baby was found to have a lactose allergy.
“I lost my father months later... as a result of his injury.” Wafa adds. “The war ended…But the pain of loss did not.”
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