Some 1 million women and girls, including an estimated 150,000 pregnant women and new mothers, are living without safety or adequate healthcare amid the devastation of war in Gaza. 

After 17 months of war, with relentless attacks on healthcare, fewer than half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are functioning, depriving women and girls of access to critical care. Women and girls have lost their homes and loved ones, their schools and livelihoods, and they lack the very basics to survive – food, water, adequate shelter and protection from violence. 

UNFPA’s immediate response in Gaza is focused on ensuring maternal healthcare and protection needs are met. Supplies such as essential medicines for new mothers, newborns and safe births, as well as hygiene items, tents, blankets and winter clothes were all delivered to people in Gaza during the ceasefire. Since the breakdown of the ceasefire, recovery and reconstruction efforts to build back health and protection services have been severely jeopardized.

In the West Bank, curfews as well as long-standing and stepped-up movement restrictions have impacted people’s livelihoods and prevented them from reaching schools, workplaces and health facilities – including for the 73,000 women who are currently pregnant. UNFPA-supported mobile clinics in the West Bank have reached displaced populations in Jenin and Tulkarm, providing medicines as well as sexual and reproductive health services, and UNFPA continues to support midwifery services in primary healthcare centres.

Updated 28 March 2025