A month after learning she was pregnant, Sahar al-Majdalawi began suffering agonising abdominal pain that left her screaming in distress.
It was her first pregnancy after seven years of trying to conceive, and the 34-year-old displaced Palestinian feared for her unborn baby.
With roads in Gaza destroyed and transport brought to a standstill by Israeli bombing, she was forced to walk for hours to the nearest hospital.
After hours walking through the darkness alongside her husband, she finally reached Al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
"I was hit by severe cramps that felt like labour pains," Majdalawi told Middle East Eye.
"We had to walk so far because there was no transport despite my pain. The whole time, I was begging God to keep my baby safe."
'We had to walk so far because there was no transport despite my pain. The whole time, I was begging God to keep my baby safe'
Doctors performed an ultrasound shortly after she arrived. Moments later, they returned with the news she had feared.
"They said: 'The foetus is still in your womb, but there is no heartbeat,'" she recalled.
"At that moment, it felt as though my own heart stopped beating. I realised I had lost the dream I had waited years to fulfil."
Majdalawi's story is far from unique in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.
Since Israel launched the two-year genocide in October 2023, miscarriages have risen sharply.
At the height of the war, miscarriage rates were around 300 percent higher than before October 2023, according to the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
The figure now stands at around 460 miscarriages per 1,000 births, compared with 140 per 1,000 births in 2022.
Data from the Palestinian Ministry of Health shows 3,958 miscarriages were recorded during the first six months of 2026, a figure described as "shocking" by Dr Adnan Radi, head of the ministry's advisory committee and a senior consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology.
"Official statistics, whether from international organisations or the Ministry of Health, undercount the true scale, but there is an undeniable and sharp surge in miscarriages during the war years," Radi told MEE.
'Miscarriage rates have multiplied. The Ministry of Health indicated the rate could be as high as 70 percent of total births in certain areas, which is a tragedy'
- Dr Adnan Radi, senior consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology
He believes hundreds of miscarriages go unrecorded because many women cannot reach medical facilities, while data collection across Gaza's sprawling tent camps has become virtually impossible.
"Although an exact number is hard to pin down, there is a consensus that miscarriage rates have multiplied. The Ministry of Health indicated the rate could be as high as 70 percent of total births in certain areas, which is a tragedy," he said.
