The spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) announced on Tuesday that Israel has repeatedly refused to allow the transfer of incubators from a hospital evacuated in northern Gaza, increasing pressure on overcrowded hospitals in the south where newborns now share oxygen masks.

The ongoing two-year war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) has increased stress and malnutrition among pregnant women, leading to a rise in premature and low-weight babies, who the World Health Organization says now represent one-fifth of newborns in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli attack on Gaza City in the northern sector last month caused hospitals in that area to close, increasing overcrowding in those still open in the south.

James Elder, UNICEF spokesperson, spoke about mothers lining up in the corridors of Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza carrying their infants, saying the severe shortage is forcing hospital staff to share oxygen masks and beds among premature babies. Meanwhile, these vital devices remain in the closed hospitals in the north.

Elder told Reuters via video link from Gaza: “We were trying to bring incubators from an evacuated hospital in the north, and four requests to obtain those incubators were rejected,” referring to supplies currently stuck at the destroyed Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital in Gaza City.

He added during a visit to a hospital in the south: “In one pediatric ward, there were three babies and three mothers on one bed, and one oxygen source. The mothers took turns using the oxygen so each baby got it for 20 minutes… This is the level of despair mothers have reached now.”

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Tuesday that Israel has rejected or obstructed 45 percent of 8,000 humanitarian missions required inside Gaza since October 7, 2023.

UNICEF called for the evacuation of remaining sick and premature children in hospitals in northern Gaza.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization transferred three of them last week to a hospital in the south but said one died before the mission began. It explained that only 14 out of 36 hospitals in Gaza are partially operational.