MSF Gaza updates: Premature babies fight for their lives and food shortages increase

22 July 2025 - As prematurely born babies fight for their lives, medical teams in Gaza lack essential equipment such as ultrasounds, incubators, medical supplies, and even premature infant formula, to keep them alive.

From the Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF)-supported Al-Helou hospital, Dr Joanne Perry, Medical team leader for north Gaza, shares her experience treating premature babies in the facility’s neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

“It started with two babies sharing one incubator – this is already completely unacceptable and shocking to see. Then it increased to three and last week we saw five babies in one incubator. With all the attacks on healthcare facilities, today there are just 36 incubators in northern Gaza compared to 126 before October 2023.

Having several babies sharing one incubator highly increases the chances of infection. The immune systems of newborns, especially premature ones, are not yet developed. To support the neurodevelopment of premature babies we use rolled blankets or other soft materials to create a boundary around the infant, mimicking the supportive environment of the womb. This is called the nesting technique. This position helps stabilise the baby's posture, reduces excessive limb movements, and promotes physiological and behavioural stability. One reason we are seeing so many premature babies is because of the deterioration in mothers’ health. This is my third time in Gaza over the past year, what’s different now is that pregnant mothers are severely underweight, severely anaemic. This can contribute to complications during pregnancy – including premature labour. Additionally, pregnant women are living in horrible conditions: in overcrowded shelters or tents with almost no access to clean water for washing. Many have no access to prenatal care due to limited functioning facilities and repeated displacement. This means risky pregnancies often go undetected until complications arise - sometimes too late.

We see premature births and babies born with health issues that might have been preventable with even the most basic monitoring, such a diagnosing pneumonia or cardiac abnormalities, which can be then successfully medicated. But we don’t have the equipment in the NICU - no ultrasounds, no x-rays, and often not even the blood tests we need.

The medical team in Al-Helou faces endless challenges every day. Fuel comes on top of the list, as all of Gaza’s hospitals run on diesel generators. Fuel shortages lead to power cuts, which kills oxygen-dependent newborns in the NICU. Sadly, on Monday night (14 July 2025) a baby who could have survived was lost because the power went out and therefore the oxygen supply was cut off.

The lack of supplies is another major issue. They are so limited that we have to extend time between diaper changes, which can lead to rashes. We are always about to reach the end of baby formula supply. We promote breastfeeding, and we’re proud to be a breastfeeding-friendly hospital, but in this situation, many mothers can’t stay to feed their babies every few hours – they often have to take care of the rest of their families, or don’t have enough money for transportation and need to walk back and forth for hours.

It’s heart-breaking. Having a baby should be a moment of joy and hope - but now, for so many families in Gaza, it’s clouded by stress and fear. Despite all the obstacles, the team is working together with dwindling resources to provide the best care possible to these newborn babies."

Caroline Willemen, MSF Project Coordinator in Gaza City, has also sent this update on the rapidly decreasing food supplies:

"Many patients across Gaza's healthcare facilities are no longer receiving food; the situation is more desperate than ever. Community kitchens, which provide food for staff and patients, have been unable to do so in some of the facilities where we work in the last few days. In the facilities where there is still food available for patients, it is only a few days' worth of basic goods, without the range of nutrients necessary for recovery or healing. Across all our facilities in the Gaza Strip, we are watching helplessly as serious medical consequences of these food shortages increase.

On 19 and 20 July, the paediatric and maternity wards in Al Helou hospital, where MSF medical teams work in northern Gaza, could not provide any food to women and children, and some days there isn’t enough baby formula for the 23 babies in the neo natal intensive care unit. In Nasser hospital, central Gaza, there are currently 168 patients admitted to the paediatric and maternity wards who could not access food on 20 and 21 July.

This lack of food also applies to medical staff. Our Palestinian colleagues live in such precarious situations now, that even if they could afford the food, they could not store any. They have to go day after day to the market to get some daily provision. If there is nothing in the market, they do not eat. Yet, despite being hungry and exhausted, our colleagues continue to work under these unimaginable circumstances.

The food situation is so dire that every day the question arises whether the patients in the hospitals we support and the medical staff who care for them will be able to eat anything at all. We are desperate. As an occupying power the Israeli authorities have an obligation to provide aid to people in Gaza. Right now, they are deliberately starving them.”

-ENDS-