Gaza Herald — Nearly 4,000 pregnancies ended in miscarriage across Gaza during the first six months of 2026, according to figures from Gaza’s Health Ministry cited by United Nations officials, highlighting the growing risks facing Palestinian women amid displacement, malnutrition and the collapse of reproductive healthcare.
The ministry recorded 3,958 miscarriages between January and June, equivalent to 208.5 cases per 1,000 live births. During the previous six months, the rate stood at 64 per 1,000 live births, meaning pregnancy losses increased more than threefold in just half a year.
The figures offer a stark measure of the conditions in which Palestinian women are carrying pregnancies. Around 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza require care, according to the United Nations Population Fund, while much of the territory’s health system remains damaged or out of service.
Around one in three pregnancies is considered high-risk, placing additional pressure on maternity services already struggling with shortages of medicines, medical equipment, reproductive health supplies and trained personnel.
The crisis is unfolding in a territory where around 180 babies are born each day, but where many mothers leave maternity facilities only to return to overcrowded tents and shelters without reliable access to clean water, adequate sanitation, nutritious food or safe places to recover.
A Sharp Rise in Pregnancy Losses
The Health Ministry recorded its highest monthly miscarriage rate in April, when it reached 377.25 cases per 1,000 live births. June recorded the largest number of cases, with 790 miscarriages.
Most of the pregnancy losses occurred during the earliest stages of pregnancy. Ministry data showed that 73.6% took place before the 13th week, while another 26.4% occurred between the 13th and 24th weeks.
The same data points to widespread maternal health problems. Among pregnant women registered in 2025, 57.1% were recorded as suffering from anemia, reflecting the broader nutritional crisis affecting women throughout the territory.
The increase has taken place despite the ceasefire, as Palestinians continue to live amid the destruction of homes and healthcare facilities, severe economic hardship, and restrictions affecting the availability of essential supplies.
The figures do not by themselves establish a single medical cause for the increase. But doctors and health officials in Gaza have repeatedly described a combination of factors that place pregnant women under extraordinary physical and psychological strain, including repeated displacement, poor nutrition, extreme heat, exhausting physical labor and difficulty obtaining medical care.
Pregnancy Inside a Tent
For seven-month pregnant Palestinian woman Hadeel al-Madani, pregnancy has unfolded alongside the daily struggle to survive.
Fetching water, washing clothes, cooking over a fire, and cleaning her tent have become exhausting tasks. Without running water or electricity, tasks that once took minutes can take hours and force pregnant women to carry heavy containers over difficult terrain.
The summer heat adds another burden. Plastic tents trap high temperatures during the day, leaving pregnant women with little protection from conditions that can become unbearable inside their shelters.
Madani said she worries constantly about the health of her unborn child. Among her few belongings, she keeps her medicines, fearing that extreme heat could affect them and that rodents and insects moving through the tents could reach her.
“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.”
Her experience reflects a wider reality for pregnant women who must maintain pregnancies while living in conditions that make basic hygiene, nutrition, rest, and medical follow-up difficult.
Waiting to Give Birth Without the Basics
Doaa al-Najjar is nearing the end of her pregnancy and preparing to give birth while still living in a tent.
She said the heat inside the shelter has affected her health and forced her to seek medical attention. After experiencing a rise in body temperature, she visited a health clinic because she feared that the problem could affect her fetus.
“I feel afraid for the pregnancy, and I’m affected by these conditions,” Najjar said. “I’m waiting for the baby to come safely.”
Before the war, Najjar said, pregnancy meant having access to food, basic necessities, and a relatively secure place to prepare for childbirth. Now, with delivery approaching, she does not have many of the things a newborn would normally need.
There is no suitable bed, and obtaining clothes, diapers, and milk has become another struggle for a family already struggling to secure its own basic needs.
She is also concerned about rats, mice and insects entering the tent and reaching her newborn.
“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.”
A Maternity System Under Pressure
The conditions facing women inside Gaza’s shelters are compounded by the deterioration of the health system itself.
At Al-Helou International Hospital in the Al-Nasr neighborhood west of Gaza City, dozens of pregnant women wait for examinations and follow-up care.
Iyad Abu Hosaira, head of the hospital’s obstetrics and gynecology department, said repeated displacement, destroyed homes and the deterioration of primary healthcare have placed pregnant women under severe pressure.
“Pregnant women lived during and after the war in places unfit for living, such as tents that lack running water and electricity,” Abu Hosaira 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,” he added.
He said pregnant women have developed health problems, including anemia, under these conditions, while the rise in miscarriages reflects the growing challenges surrounding pregnancy and childbirth.
The wider healthcare system has suffered extensive damage. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that only 44% of health service points that existed before October 2023 were functioning by mid-July 2026.
The World Health Organization has also reported that no hospital in Gaza is operating at full capacity and that more than half of essential medicines are out of stock.
Medical supplies have continued to come under pressure. In early August, strikes destroyed two warehouses containing vital medicines and medical consumables and severely damaged two others belonging to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah.
UNFPA continues to support maternity hospitals, health centers, mobile services and midwives, while providing medicines, medical equipment and reproductive health supplies. It also provides protection and mental health services for women and girls.
But the gap between available services and the scale of need remains vast.
The Cost Paid Before Birth
The nearly 4,000 miscarriages recorded during the first half of 2026 add another dimension to Gaza’s health crisis. They show how the consequences of war extend beyond those who are already sick or injured and into pregnancies that were expected to bring new lives into the world.
For Palestinian women, pregnancy now takes place against a backdrop of displacement, hunger, heat, physical exhaustion and uncertainty over whether adequate medical care will be available when complications arise.
The loss of a pregnancy is deeply personal, but the scale of the increase has also become a public health warning.
A territory where hospitals are struggling to function, essential medicines are running out, and pregnant women are living without reliable access to food, water, and shelter is also a territory where bringing a child safely into the world has become increasingly difficult.
For Gaza’s mothers, the struggle is no longer confined to surviving childbirth. It begins months earlier, with the fight to carry a pregnancy through conditions that have made even the most basic requirements for a healthy pregnancy increasingly difficult to obtain.
The nearly 4,000 pregnancy losses recorded in six months therefore tell a story larger than a statistic. They point to a crisis reaching into one of the most fundamental dimensions of civilian life: the ability of Palestinian women to carry, deliver and protect the next generation.
