“My nerves are shattered,” says Noura, a 26-year-old Palestinian woman, explaining that she has been “left with nothing”.
After years of IVF treatment, she became pregnant in July 2023. “I was overjoyed,” she remembers, describing the moment she saw the positive pregnancy test.
She and her husband Mohamed decided to store two more embryos at Al-Basma Fertility Centre in Gaza City, which had helped them conceive, in the hope of having more children in the future.
“I thought my dream had finally come true,” she says. “But the day the Israelis came in, something in me said it was all over.”
Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas’s cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
Since then at least 54,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry.
Like thousands of Gazans, Noura and Mohamed had to repeatedly flee, and were unable to get the food, vitamins and medication she needed for a healthy pregnancy.
