Conditions in Gaza are worsening by the day. 

Through the nearly two years of conflict, midwives, psychosocial support workers, doctors, and mobile health clinics have remained committed to showing up for the women, girls, and pregnant women in dire need of care. 

One of those brave individuals is Dr. Ambereen Sleemi, a member of the USA for UNFPA’s Leadership Council and a pelvic medicine reconstruction surgeon.

Dr. Sleemi (left) with fellow healthcare workers

Dr. Sleemi recently returned from a three-and-a-half-week tenure at Gaza’s Nasser Hospital, the region’s last fully operational hospital. Just a month later, Nasser Hospital was hit by multiple airstrikes.

After nearly two years of war in Gaza, the entire region and its healthcare system have been devastated. Due to these conditions, it has been nearly impossible to carry a healthy pregnancy in Gaza — and now, famine has been confirmed in parts of Gaza.

“The trauma rate was astronomical already — and throw on top of that the malnutrition and food scarcity that every person was facing,” Dr. Sleemi shared. “Just starvation alone would make people of all ages critically ill.”

“I treated a pregnant mother with a gunshot through her abdomen. I have seen babies brought in starving and malnourished, unable to be saved.”

Right now, the need for aid is greater than ever in Gaza. UNFPA is one of the organizations delivering lifesaving care there — and one of the few who remain focused on pregnant mothers, women, and girls.

Your support provides Dignity Kits that are one of the few sources of menstrual health products and other feminine health items. It delivers nutrients and vitamins to pregnant and breastfeeding mothers. It enables mental health services and referral services.

Through it all, UNFPA is there. You can be too. Your donation creates a lifeline for women, girls, pregnant mothers, and their babies in Gaza. Will you be there for the most vulnerable living through this crisis and make a lifesaving gift today?

We condemn the violence in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel, and hope for a sustained humanitarian ceasefire, the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages by Hamas, and an end to the violence. The suffering must end, and peace must prevail.

Your gift is a lifeline. Please act now.

— USA for UNFPA