Amid intensified war between Israel and Hamas, these pregnant women in Gaza are surviving with minimal nutrition and no medical care after Israel’s call to evacuate them from the northern part of the region.

Gaza: Pregnant women in Gaza Strip expressed concern as they grapple with challenges with hospitals in the area barely being operational and medical services “almost gone” amid intensified Israel-Hamas conflict. Moreover, Allen of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said the stories of pregnant women he heard from Gaza are “harrowing”, CNN reported.

Allen in a statement said that imagine going through that process in those final stages and your last trimester before giving birth, with possible complications, without clothing, without hygiene, support, and not sure about what the next day, next hour, next minute will bring for themselves and for their unborn child.

At this critical time of war, these pregnant women in Gaza are surviving with minimal nutrition and no medical care after Israel’s call to evacuate from the northern part of the region. However, the evacuation hasn’t been easy for everyone, including the sick, elderly and pregnant.

After the call for evacuation, Khulood Khaled, an eight-months pregnant woman decided to leave her home in the al-Karama district of the northern Gaza Strip, after waking up to the sound of Israeli airstrikes.

Eventually, she made it to the southern city of Khan Younis, but she is now surviving on “a dry piece of bread,” as the territory faces shortage in food supply and electricity and water. “I don’t know if the bread will be available tomorrow,” she said.

Moreover, Khulood said she won’t know where to go when it’s time for her to give birth.

“I’m scared. For my son, my unborn child and myself,” she told CNN. “I don’t want to die. I want to see my son grow up…but there’s no life left here. Gaza has become a ghost city.”

Another pregnant woman Nardeen Fares travelled with her husband from the al-Rimal neighbourhood in Gaza City to Khan Younis – roughly 16 miles away or a 40-minute drive. As her due date is rapidly approaching, Fares said she feared what the future holds for her baby.

“Right now, there is an exodus…half of the Gaza Strip is moving to Khan Younis,” Fares told CNN over phone.

Fares also expressed concern that hospitals in Khan Younis won’t be equipped to treat her if she goes into labour.

On Tuesday, an Israeli airstrike on a hospital in Gaza City claimed the lives of hundreds of people, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave. A Gaza civil defence chief stated on Al-Jazeera television that over 300 people were killed in the explosion at Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital.

Initially, at least 500 deaths were reported, according to a source from the Gaza Health Ministry. The Hamas-run government is in charge of both departments, Reuters reported.

However, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), has stated that reports of a possible Israeli airstrike against a hospital in Gaza are still under review.

The initial investigation by the IDF shows that the explosion in the hospital in Gaza was caused by a failed Hamas rocket launch, as reported by the news organization i24NEWS.