GAZA, (Palestine Foundation Information Center), The Director General of the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, Dr. Munir al-Bursh, has said that the Israeli claims about registering 60,000 births during 2025 fall within the framework of a blatant political attempt to deny the crime of genocide and to deny the targeting of children, affirming that documented health data reveal a different reality that reflects the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe experienced by the Strip.
He explained in a press statement on Friday that the ministry’s official data indicate the registration of approximately 50,000 live births only during 2025, a decrease estimated at 11 percent compared to rates before the war, a direct indicator of the deterioration of health and living conditions, especially in light of bombardment, siege, and the destruction of the medical system.
Al-Bursh revealed shocking data regarding births, clarifying that the health sector documented during the same year 4,900 cases of low birth weight deliveries, an increase exceeding 60 percent compared to the period before the war, in addition to the registration of 4,100 cases of premature births, as a result of mothers being exposed to severe psychological and physical pressures and being deprived of basic health care.
The health official pointed to the registration of 615 cases of intrauterine deaths, a figure equal to double the rates recorded before the war, reflecting the direct impact of the aggression on fetuses, alongside the documentation of 457 cases of neonatal deaths immediately after birth, an increase of 50 percent, amid the near complete collapse of medical services.
He also affirmed the registration of 322 cases of congenital malformations among newborns, at a rate of 64 cases per 10,000 live births, compared to only 32 cases before the war, emphasizing that these figures are not incidental, but a direct result of bombardment, starvation, pollution, and the absence of health care.
He stressed that the Israeli inflation of birth numbers to inaccurate levels aims to market a false narrative that denies genocide, explaining that the assessment of crimes is not based solely on the number of those born, but on those who were deprived of safe childbirth, those who were born under conditions that threaten their lives, and those who lost their lives before the minimum requirements for survival were available.
Al-Bursh concluded by saying that these data represent a documented health testimony to an ongoing crime, and that attempts to manipulate numbers will not change the fact that Gaza is living through one of the most dangerous humanitarian catastrophes in its modern history.
