According to official announcements by the Ministry of Health in Gaza, the region recorded a severe increase in the number of cases of congenital abnormalities in newborns, amounting to a total of 766 cases from 2022 to 2026. The office provides the following statistics by year:
2022: 184 cases;.
2025: 322 cases (a 75% increase compared to 2022).
January-September 2026: 260 cases (already exceeding the total for 2022).
Total for three reporting periods: 766 cases were registered. Among the most common documented abnormalities that require special treatment and surgical intervention, doctors recognize:
Cleft lip and palate ("cleft lip" and "cleft palate");.
Pathologies of the formation of the external genitalia (making it difficult to determine the sex of the child at birth);
Shortening of the upper limbs;
umbilical hernia. Medical experts attribute this surge to the catastrophic humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip:
-Deep exhaustion and malnutrition of pregnant women, critical lack of basic microelements (such as folic acid and iron).
- The collapse of medical infrastructure, as a result of which more than half of the primary care centers and hospitals stopped working or functioned only partially, completely preventing the women from prenatal care (radiation).
-Exposure to toxic environmental pollutants and combustion products in areas of ongoing combat operations. The Ministry of Health emphasizes that dry statistics cannot serve as absolute proof of the specific causes of mutations, therefore, the involvement of independent international experts and relevant agencies (such as WHO) is essential for a detailed study of the situation.