UNFPA Situation Report on the Crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territory -May/June 2025

17 July 2025

Highlights:

● Critical services in Gaza are collapsing under fuel shortages: putting hospitals, ambulances, water systems, and humanitarian operations on the edge of shutdown.

● Maternal and newborn care is facing a total shutdown: Fuel and supply shortages are crippling services, leaving pregnant women, premature and low birth weight babies without life-saving support. In the seven partially functioning hospitals and four field hospitals still providing obstetric and newborn care, fuel is nearly depleted. Services are being cut, diagnostic units are closing, and equipment is failing. With one in three pregnancies high-risk, the loss of ultrasound machines, lab analyzers, fetal monitors, and incubators is leaving hundreds of preterm and low birth weight babies without the critical care they need to survive. As a result, more women are giving birth outside hospitals, often in unsafe, unhygienic conditions. In the first six months of 2025, 157 out-of-hospital births were reported in Gaza.

● Births have sharply declined while maternal and newborn deaths are rising: a stark reflection of the collapse of health services and the dangerous conditions in which women are forced to give birth. According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Only 17,000 births were recorded in the first six months of 2025 — a staggering 41 per cent drop compared to the same period in 2022. Miscarriages have surged, with over 2,600 women affected, while 220 pregnancy-related deaths occurred before delivery. Premature births and low birth weight cases have sharply increased, with more than 1,460 babies born too early, over 1,600 born underweight, and over 2,500 infants admitted to neonatal intensive care. Newborn deaths are rising, including at least 21 babies who died on their first day of life.

● The risks of gender-based violence (GBV), exploitation, and abuse are deepening in Gaza: daily forced displacement orders push women and girls into overcrowded, unsafe areas with no shelter or essential supplies. With protection services and community networks collapsing, GBV hotlines severed, and case management impossible, they are left without safe spaces or access to support. Incidents of sexual exploitation, abuse, domestic violence, family separation, and early marriage are rising sharply. The mental health crisis among women and girls is deepening.

● Basic hygiene supplies, including menstrual products, are completely exhausted: compounding health and protection risks for women and girls. These essential items have been blocked from entering Gaza for over four months, leaving 700,000 women and girls in Gaza without any means to manage their hygiene.

● In the West Bank, over 230,000 women and girls, including 14,800 pregnant women, have limited or no access to reproductive health services, with maternal health care disrupted by increased violence, movement restrictions, and attacks on health facilities.

● UNFPA sustains critical support amid an escalating crisis: Despite immense challenges, UNFPA remained on the ground in May and June, reaching over 91,000 people with essential sexual and reproductive health, GBV, and youth-focused services across Palestine. Yet, more than 160 UNFPA aid trucks remain stranded at the border.