No one should have to face giving birth under bombs. Palestinian liberation is a reproductive justice, gender justice, and health justice issue. According to the United Nations, 5,500 women in Gaza are expected to deliver within the next 30 days. Today, the Ministry of Health announced that Gaza’s health care system has reached “total collapse.” Amidst ongoing Israeli bombardment, pregnant women in Gaza are forced to give birth in the most dire circumstances, with no safe shelter, medical supplies, food, water, fuel, or electricity.
Since the establishment of the Israeli state, Israeli politicians have treated the Palestinian birth rate as a “demographic threat” to be feared, obsessively debated, and managed. The devaluation of Palestinian lives and suppression of the Palestinian population has a long history in Israeli policy and practice.
