Pregnancies shadowed by fear as miscarriage haunts Palestinian women in Gaza

With a seven-month pregnancy weighing heavily on her body, Palestinian woman Hadeel al-Madani lifts a water gallon and moves around inside her tent, carrying out daily tasks that Israel’s genocidal war has turned into exhausting burdens that fuel fears for her unborn child.

Laundry, cooking, washing dishes and cleaning the living space were once simple tasks that took little time. Today, they require hours of effort that start from fetching and carrying water, to washing clothes by hand, and lighting fires to cook food.

Palestinian women in Gaza perform these tasks under harsh humanitarian conditions, amid summer heat trapped inside tents made of poor-quality plastic fabric, turning them during the daytime into places almost impossible to live in.

The hardship has been worsened by the continued power outage since Israel began its genocidal war on Oct. 8, 2023.

For pregnant women, the effects go beyond daily exhaustion. Fears are growing over the loss of unborn children amid repeated displacement, malnutrition, difficulty accessing medical care, heavy physical labor and extreme heat inside tents.

Figures from Gaza’s Health Ministry show 3,958 miscarriages were recorded in the first half of 2026, at a rate of 208.5 cases per 1,000 live births, compared with 64 cases per 1,000 live births in the second half of 2025, which is a 3.3-fold increase.