A midwife in Gaza: Bringing life into the world during Israel’s war | Israel-Palestine conflict

In December, the third month of the war, Nour was attending a delivery when she heard that her brother had been brought in, severely injured in an Israeli bombing.

“I nearly broke down because I hadn’t seen my family for months and feared they were hiding the news of his death,” she recalled.

“I ran through the hospital, screaming, until I reached him. He had severe injuries all over his body. I was crying uncontrollably.”

But her brother was alive and eventually healed. He had been injured when the house next door was bombed, a strike that badly damaged the home they were sheltering in.

“Like all families, my family – my parents and nine siblings – was forced to move from one place to another during the war,” Nour said.

Throughout, she worked hard, wanting to be there for the labouring mothers, many of whom are brought to the hospital alone, weeping and in despair because they have lost loved ones.

“Women would be crying on the birthing bed, telling us about losing their children, husbands or families. This profoundly affects the birthing process,” Nour explained.

“Psychological well-being is vital for the birthing mother. We’d try to offer some support. We’d embrace them or talk to them, try to comfort and reassure them.

“But there were so many cases that this wasn’t always possible, especially in the early months.”

Nour recalled one woman who went into labour on the day her husband was killed. In shock, she wept bitterly throughout the birth as she faced welcoming a new life into a world where her baby’s father had just been killed.

“It was an incredibly difficult situation, and we were at a loss for words to comfort her,” Nour recalled, adding that the woman had trembled uncontrollably throughout, unable to regulate her emotions.

She had a baby boy whom she named after her husband and left the hospital fretting about how she would be able to provide for his needs.

An orderly rushed in, interrupting Nour, with a newborn in her arms who was struggling to breathe. Nour hurried over to help, ensuring the baby was stable and connected to oxygen.

Once the situation was under control, she returned, though she got up occasionally to check on the infant.

Births in which the mother had been injured in a bombing, sometimes having just been pulled from the rubble, were possibly even more heart-wrenching, Nour said.

“When the injury is to the back of a woman’s head, the birth becomes incredibly complex,” Nour recalled. “We struggle to find a position for her to give birth safely.

“These situations … weren’t in my training or the books we studied,” Nour reflected.