Ibtisam Al Kafarna’s labor pains began after midnight, and she was brought to the hospital in Gaza’s Deir Al Balah neighborhood on a donkey cart.
There were no beds available at Shohadaa Al Aqsaa, so she sat on a chair for 30 minutes after delivering her baby son by cesarean section.
Because the hospital was overcrowded, she was ordered to leave shortly after.
“There were two women per bed,” she told The National. “Women after delivery need to rest and eat well, but those are now considered luxuries.”
Ms Al Kafarna had fled to Deir Al Balah from Beit Hanoun in the north of the Gaza and wasn’t expecting to deliver her baby soon.
The doctors didn’t examine her baby or provide any pain relief medication for her surgery.
She is now struggling to provide formula milk and diapers for her baby, and her mother-in-law is asking around to borrow clothes for the baby and mother.
A same destiny befell Rana Hamadona.
She was compelled by Israel’s troops to evacuate from the Al Sinna region of Khan Younis to Deir Al Balah, carrying her week-old baby.
Ms Hamadona had delivered her baby daughter at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, but she was ordered to leave right away.
She requested the hospital for “anti-D” medication, which she needed because her blood type differed from her husband’s, but it was not accessible.
“My baby girl was not examined by the doctors, and now she has a cough,” she told The National from her tent in Deir Al Balah camp in central Gaza.
She attempts to escape by sleeping, believing that it will take her mind off the fate of her ailing kid.
Wissam Zaqout, the head of the Neonatal Department at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, said that after a large number of citizens fled from the north to the central region, the number of patients coming to the hospital had multiplied.
