Miscarriages and stillbirths surge as Israel’s siege, malnutrition, toxic exposure and displacement ravage mothers
Published 20 Aug, 2026 19:53
By Eva Bartlett, an American/Canadian journalist who has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, Venezuela and the Donbass, recipient of the 2017 International Journalism Award for International Reporting, granted by the Mexican Journalists’ Press Club and first recipient of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.
By Eva Bartlett, an American/Canadian journalist who has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, Venezuela and the Donbass, recipient of the 2017 International Journalism Award for International Reporting, granted by the Mexican Journalists’ Press Club and first recipient of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.
@evakbartlettIn Gaza@EvaKarene_Bartlett
Bodies being recovered from the rubble of a destroyed house in Gaza, Palestine on August 18, 2026 © Hamza Z. H. Qraiqea / Anadolu via Getty Images
Shocking news of a sudden over-threefold year-on-year increase of the number of miscarriages and stillbirths should be front page on global media. But because it is one of the latest consequences of the ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, it will probably go ignored by most Western corporate media.
In fact, since a ‘ceasefire’ supposedly came into effect in October 2025, media coverage of Gaza has decreased dramatically. But – as with ceasefires prior – Israel has continued to kill Palestinians in Gaza on a near-daily basis, by bombing, machinegun fire, drone strikes, and by (continuing its near twenty-year siege on Gaza) not allowing in adequate amounts of humanitarian aid, medical supplies, and other things needed to just sustain life at the very basic level.
As of August 19, the Gaza Health Ministry reports 1,273 Palestinians have been killed, 4,223 wounded since October 11, 2025.
In mid-July, Ahmad Abu Foul, a Palestinian medic who I’ve known since I lived in Gaza, told me of the sudden increase in miscarriages, primarily among women living in displacement tents across the Gaza Strip.
He cited Dr. Mohammed Al-Bashiti, an obstetrics and gynecology specialist at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, as warning of this disturbing increase and attributing it to various environmental and physical factors, notably, severe malnutrition and anemia, and “extreme physical fatigue due to repeated displacement from one place to another. Many are forced to carry heavy loads beyond their physical capacity, putting their pregnancies at greater risk.”
But it’s also caused by exposure to toxic chemicals – explosive residues, TNT-related materials, smoke – which put the baby at risk. Ahmad said that his sister just had a miscarriage at four months pregnant, and his niece had a stillbirth at eight months.
Thousands of women in #Gaza have lost their pregnancies amid the destruction of the healthcare system, displacement, shortages of essential supplies, and the ongoing genocide.
A thread 🧵 pic.twitter.com/oRmM3M9xWk
— Euro-Med Monitor (@EuroMedHR) August 13, 2026
The Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, on July 30 published an article highlighting the dramatic rise in miscarriages. It cited a recent UN report stating from January to June 2026, 3,950 miscarriages had been reported. This is over triple the 1,197 miscarriages reported from July to December 2025. The miscarriage rate, it notes, is one-sixth of all pregnancies.
Haaretz cited Dr. Ahmed al-Farra, head of the pediatric department at Nasser Hospital as likewise saying the contributing factors to the increase in miscarriages are malnutrition and stress and also water shortages: “We have reached a point where each person has three liters of water a day, far below the minimum required. Ninety percent of the water is not fit for drinking. The water shortage leads to infections, weakening the immune system and worsening malnutrition.”
With the complete destruction of the Gaza Strip by Israel, and with Palestinians constantly forced to suddenly move their inadequate tents elsewhere, the lack of clean drinking water, and the near-complete dependence on financial and humanitarian aid from the outside world set the stage for a host of food-, water-, and hygiene-related illnesses, and now this dramatic increase in miscarriages.
Although it was stipulated in the ‘ceasefire’, Israel hasn’t been allowing sufficient food, water and medicines to enter Gaza.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported on August 9, 2026, that, “Israel enforces a comprehensive policy that disrupts the entire supply chain, starting from the entry of goods and aid through crossings until they reach the population.”
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It notes the dearth of aid trucks entering Gaza in the first place, and that those which are permitted entry are not guaranteed to reach those in need, “due to the destruction or impairment of the transportation, storage, and distribution infrastructure.” It also notes that delays in shipping “cause frozen food, medicine, and other vital materials to spoil before reaching those in need.”
Euro-Med points out that Israel, “as the occupying power, has an obligation under Articles 55 and 59 of the Fourth Geneva Convention to guarantee that the population receives food and medical supplies when local resources are insufficient.”
From a logistical perspective, many of the illnesses plaguing Gaza could be eradicated were Israel to adhere to international law and allow in sufficient food, water and medical aid.
Israel is of course aware of this, as it has been since enforcing a full siege on Gaza in 2007. But the Israeli authorities know no international body or state – certainly not its biggest backer, the US – will force it to stop its genocide and allow in aid.
The invisible, creeping ‘Yellow Line’
Israel has been expanding its control of Gaza via a constantly-expanding, mostly-invisible, ‘Yellow Line’ – a demarcation line set out in the Israeli-US ‘peace plan’ of 2025. The Palestinians can mainly only guess at where it lies, aside from some yellow cement blocks which are periodically moved still further into Gaza, to claim more land.
Palestinians report being fired upon by Israeli forces even if nowhere near where the Yellow Line might be. This is reminiscent of the Israeli ‘Buffer Zone’ imposed inside the Gaza Strip in the 90s and widened in the 2000s, expanding from 50 meters to 300 meters to much further. It was imposed in the name of “security” but was, in reality, another landgrab device.
Having accompanied Palestinian farmers for years when I lived in Gaza, I’m acutely aware of how Israeli soldiers fired live ammunition on any – elderly to child – Palestinian civilians, whether near what Israel deemed off limits, or hundreds of meters or even a kilometer away. We routinely came under this fire, bullets whizzing close by our heads and bodies, Israel maiming or killing Palestinians who were simply trying to work their farmland.
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TRT World noted in a July 27 article that since October, “the so-called Yellow Line has expanded from covering roughly half of Gaza to nearly 65 percent of the territory by June, and more than 23 kilometers of berms have gone up alongside it.”
Many Palestinians, including Ahmad, the medic mentioned above, report being told suddenly one morning to move west as the Israeli occupying forces shift the Yellow Line still further.
While the Yellow Line theoretically marks the limits of Israel’s ‘temporary’ occupation, it is clear that Israeli forces never intend to withdraw. Instead, Israeli leaders speak of “encouraging emigration” of Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip. This is code-speak for making conditions so unlivable that they are forced out of the Strip – in other words, ethnic cleansing.
Nonstop killing continues
On August 19, Israel killed ten Palestinians in central Gaza. On August 18, an Israeli strike near the sea in Gaza City killed six Palestinians, including a child, and wounded ten more. The slaughtering hasn’t stopped since the ‘ceasefire’, but major media reporting on it has.
Nearly every day there are reports from Gaza of Palestinians killed or maimed by Israel, ceasefire be damned. On top of which, Israel continues its decades-old policy of gunning down Palestinian fishers, ensuring they cannot access the sea for food.
Gaza’s Health Ministry lists the Palestinian death toll since October 2023 as 73,407. It lists only those it can actually count, which does not include those buried under rubble, completely obliterated, or otherwise unaccounted for.
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Many believe the real number is in the hundreds of thousands. Back in July 2024, I wrote of estimates in the Lancet that a death count of close to 200,000 was “not implausible,” while others with expertise in Gaza put the number of killed Palestinians at over double that. I also referred to a report in which a graphic denoting population accounted for 1.85 million people, not the 2.2 million existing pre-genocide.
Israel is now actively working to ensure a true death toll cannot be counted, literally removing the evidence of unaccounted-for bodies under the rubble.
Euro-Med reported on August 3 that Israel has removed or crushed an estimated 10 million tonnes of rubble from Gaza, “before international and local investigative committees have had the chance to survey, examine, and document the sites. This risks destroying crucial evidence of genocide and the remains of victims still unaccounted for under the rubble. These sites need careful examination and thorough criminal investigation before any intervention that might change or erase their features.”
We’ve seen Israeli leadership call for Israel to kill 30, 40, 50 Palestinians a night, and prior to that – among a very long list of genocidal statements – refer to Palestinians as human animals and enforce measures to ensure that if Israeli bombs and fire don’t kill Palestinians, they will die of starvation, disease, or before they are even born. So, it isn’t hard to conclude that this dramatic rise in miscarriages and stillbirths is not an accidental consequence of the genocide, but a predicted and calculated result of Israeli policies.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
