NEW YORK (Dispatches) – The Zionist regime has committed “genocidal acts” through the systematic destruction of women’s healthcare facilities in Gaza, UN experts said in a major new report.
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Al-Quds, found that Israel’s systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities, coupled with restricted medical supplies, resulted in a surge in maternal deaths, and is therefore tantamount to the crime of extermination.
Additionally, the report said that the Zionist regime’s direct targeting of women’s healthcare facilities has resulted in “irreversible long-term effects on the mental health and reproductive and fertility prospects of Palestinians as a group”. 
This, the commission concluded, amounts to two categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention.
They include deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians and imposing measures intended to prevent births. 
An obstetrician in Gaza who spoke to the commission described the violations as a “war against women”.
“Giving birth in Gaza is like giving birth in the Middle Ages. There is no access to neonatal, prenatal or post-partum care,” another obstetrician quoted in the report said.
“Basic equipment for childbirth, such as forceps, is not available, nor are crucial drugs such as hypertension medication to treat common and serious conditions such as preeclampsia. As a result, maternal morbidity, stillbirths, and miscarriages have increased.”
According to the report, a lack of pain relief medication particularly impacted women who had undergone Cesarean sections, who were forced to endure the procedure without it.
Medical personnel reported that the combined lack of space, medication and equipment was resulting in an increasing number of maternal deaths.
Meanwhile, the inaccessibility of healthcare services compelled many women to resort to unsafe deliveries at homes or in shelters.
The commission found that the surge in female fatalities in the strip since October - over double the proportion of deaths in the 2008 conflict - is also driven by the increased use of heavy aerial bombardment and the targeting of residential buildings, which disproportionately impacts women.
It noted that the spike could also be due to the Israeli military’s strategy of targeting private homes with the stated aim of killing militants, resulting in entire families killed together.