After six months of war in Gaza, the Palestinian medical infrastructure has collapsed, leaving tens of thousands of pregnant women without a safe place to deliver. Reporters Gabrielle Berbey and Salman Ahad Khan follow one mother over the final months of her pregnancy after she’s forced to leave behind her home, work and doctor in Gaza City.
We begin with the reporters’ first call to Lubna Al Rayyes five weeks into the war, as she is seven months pregnant with her third child. Before the war’s start on Oct. 7, Al Rayyes ran a prestigious school in Gaza City and her husband owned a clothing store. After being forced to evacuate their home, they fled to Khan Younis, but that city soon came under attack by the Israeli military as well. After being in regular contact with Al Rayyes for more than a month, the reporters lost contact with her.
Berbey and Khan then track down Al Rayyes’ sister, who was able to leave Gaza and relocate to Canada because of her husband’s Canadian citizenship. Canada’s Palestinian community lobbied the government to create an asylum program for displaced people in Gaza, but the program became mired in delays. Berbey and Khan eventually reconnect with Al Rayyes, who explains what happened with her delivery.
Beyond the collapse of the medical system, the health of Palestinians in Gaza is threatened by food shortages. Khan speaks with Tessa Roseboom, a Dutch researcher who’s been looking at how famine affects the development of babies in their mothers’ womb. We then meet Dr. Ghassan Jawad, an OB-GYN from Gaza who was forced to deliver babies in cars, shelters and even on the street as the medical system stopped functioning. Jawad had worked at Al-Shifa hospital, which was heavily damaged in a recent attack by the Israeli military.
Dig Deeper
Read: Inside Gaza’s Primary Maternity Hospital Where Babies Are Being Born Smaller, Premature and with Congenital Disorders (Jezebel)
Credits
Reporters and lead producers: Gabrielle Berbey and Salman Ahad Khan | Producer: Neroli Price | Editor: Taki Telonidis | Fact checker: Nikki Frick | Production managers: Steven Rascón and Zulema Cobb | Digital producer: Nikki Frick | General counsel: Victoria Baranetsky and Gary Bostwick | Original score and sound design: Salman Ahad Khan, Jim Briggs and Fernando Arruda | Interim executive producers: Brett Myers, Taki Telonidis and James West | Host: Al Letson | Special thanks to Shaimaa Ziara, Dr. Mohammad Ziara, Reem Farhat, Najib Aminy, Nadeen Shaker and Tessa Moll
Additional audio courtesy of UNFPA/Bisan Ouda.
Support for Reveal is provided by the Reva and David Logan Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Hellman Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Park Foundation.
