The Israeli siege of Gaza that has restricted access to food, water and medicine is now beginning to hit unborn children and newborn babies. "Many babies are born suffering from anaemia that they have inherited from their mothers," Dr Salah al-Rantisi, head of the women's health department at the Palestinian ministry of health in Gaza told IPS. And the mothers are becoming anaemic because they do not now get enough nutrition through pregnancy. That in turn happens because the Israeli blockade has choked the supply of food and medicines. Dr al-Rantisi also heads the women's health unit at Nasser hospital, where about 30 to 40 children are born every day. Many suffer from anaemia, he says. Anwaar Abu Daqqa, 30, has lost three babies prematurely. The foetuses were malformed as a result of lack of nutrition and medicine for the mother, Dr al-Rantisi said. And in the last case she reached hospital late because she could not find transport...
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Siege Hits Palestinians Before They Are Born
Mohammed Omer
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It can be a hard life for babies from day one, or even earlier.
Credit:Mohammed Omer
GAZA CITY, May 14 (IPS) - The Israeli siege of Gaza that has restricted access to food, water and medicine is now beginning to hit unborn children and newborn babies.
"Many babies are born suffering from anaemia that they have inherited from their mothers," Dr Salah al-Rantisi, head of the women's health department at the Palestinian ministry of health in Gaza told IPS. And the mothers are becoming anaemic because they do not now get enough nutrition through pregnancy.
That in turn happens because the Israeli blockade has choked the supply of food and medicines.
Dr al-Rantisi also heads the women's health unit at Nasser hospital, where about 30 to 40 children are born every day. Many suffer from anaemia, he says.
Anwaar Abu Daqqa, 30, has lost three babies prematurely. The foetuses were malformed as a result of lack of nutrition and medicine for the mother, Dr al-Rantisi said. And in the last case she reached hospital late because she could not find transport.
"Premature babies born dangerously underweight is a daily and increasing phenomenon in Gaza's hospitals," he says.
The Gaza Strip is poorer and harder hit than the West Bank, but there too there are well documented instances of women having to give birth at checkpoints because of restrictions on movement.
The ministry of health says 9,000 to 10,000 babies are born in the Gaza Strip every month. Of every 1,000 born, 28 die from malnutrition, anaemia and other poverty-related causes. The ministry has no figures for surviving babies suffering from malnutrition.
"There are many cases of pregnant women who need medicines that are not available in Gaza," al-Rantisi said. Most families could not afford them if they were available, he said.
The World Bank said last month that the poverty rate in Gaza is now close to 67 percent and that economic growth last year was zero.
One consequence of poverty is anaemia. The condition, a direct consequence of poor nutrition, is not new to Gaza. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) reported in 2002 that 19 percent of Gazans suffer from anaemia. That figure is estimated by UNRWA now to be 77.5 percent. Children receive on average only 61 percent of their daily need of calories from UN supplies.
Many of the newly born have been hit by the political situation before they could open their eyes to the world. Of the many deliveries that take place at al-Shifa hospital, the largest in Gaza, no one can tell how many of these children could grow up to live happy and healthy lives. Through the many dangers has arisen awareness of this new one – that sanctions can hit Gazans quite literally prematurely.
The fear of bombing comes later; the first dangers are the lack of food, water and medicines.
Tahani Safi, 29, lies worrying about the caesarean section scheduled for the next day. She suffers from malnutrition, high blood pressure, diabetes, and a shortage of protective water around the child in the womb.
There are many mothers with such difficulties. Such cases can be found at any hospital, but doctors say the number of cases of conditions a result of poor food and medical care in Gaza is now rising. Health authorities have warned that the life and health of countless unborn babies is in serious danger all across Gaza.
So far 146 Gazans have died directly as a result of the Israeli siege, and the border closures and shortage of medication and health care this has brought, according to the ministry of health.
The U.S. celebrated Mothers Day Sunday May 11. No one in Gaza did. (END/2008)
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:: Article nr. 44035 sent on 15-may-2008 06:11 ECT
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Link: www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42367
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| Comment pos ted: by michaelm on 16 May 2008 - 14:07 | "Kodem kol, kol goyim hayot". I don't know Hebrew, but i know that this is what Israelis say to one another when discussing non j**s, and it means,"First of all , all non j**s are animals".
To Israelis we are human cattle, and a threat to their hegemony over the planet for as long as we continue to exist. They think that because they unilaterally h ave deemed the planet to be their property, we are therefore unwelcome tenants a nd should go elsewhere. (?)
Unlike cattle and such we have no economic value to them, which is also why they are casting about looking for means of expelling Palestinians to be out of thei r sight, but thru the means of the net we know almost day by day what they have been up to, and they so hate being observed by the outside world almost as they do it; which is why they chafe at being reduced to implementing measures against Palestinians much short of the outright genocidal famine their forbears imposed on the Ukraine in the early 1930s, which took 7,000,000 lives - others go higher or lower than this.
It is in that context that i see any manifestation of oppression against Palesti nians, and in this instance it is evidence of malnutrition in the newborn, and o f course, the ever present sporadic reports of women delivering at checkpoints w ith the intended tragic results.
While they moan about the Palestinian demographic time bomb which they feel will overwhelm them, they don't seem to mind the staggering 50,000 abortions annuall y that they inflict on their own (unChosen People?) and if one does some number crunching using bare bones data, the figure could be of 1,718,000 "j****h" babie s who were lost to abortion these last 60yrs. I use the " " as a baby is a baby is a baby, but it's the indoctrination that's the problem.
Had they their own house in order just in this particular, they would not have h ad - according to their lights - as urgent a need to oppress the Palestinians to somehow attrit their numbers, and would have been far better placed to negotiat e the inevitable one state solution.
And all this killing for sport - which it also is, before a Western world that k nows, but which is still too paralysed by unfounded Holocaust Guilt to act.
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