W hen Raneen went into labour in Gaza , she desperately called for an ambulance but the dispatcher told her the service only responded to injured people. A neighbour found a horse-drawn cart, which moved slowly through Khan Younis, in the south of the besieged enclave, with Raneen's having little space to breathe between contractions .

Her daughter was born into a war that had already taken her son and left her husband too sick to work. She had spent the pregnancy malnourished, anaemic and short of vitamins . She tells The Independent : " Our suffering is immense . My daughter was born amid this tragedy."

Months later, she found Wefaq, a women -led organisation in Gaza, through word of mouth. They gave her a mattress and access to a psychotherapist.…