0ver 10,000 women killed as Gaza conflict rages, UN Women
Palestinian women bake bread amid the rubble of destroyed buildings in the Khezaa district on the outskirts of the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Yuni on November 25, 2023.
What you need to know:
- UN Women has documented the abhorrent living conditions women and girls in Gaza Strip currently face.
- Many women and girls are also unable to manage their menstrual hygiene with dignity and safety.
- Both Palestinian and Israeli women activists have, on several occasions, called for end to bloodshed but their plea has not been heeded by the two warring parties.
The UN Women has lifted the lid on the horrifying effects that the ongoing war in Gaza is having on women and girls. A series of gender alerts produced by the agency provides an analysis of the reality of women’s and girls’ lives in the Gaza Strip, documenting abhorrent living conditions they currently face.
According to the UN agency, six months into the war on Gaza, over 10,000 women have been killed among them an estimated 6,000 mothers, leaving 19,000 orphaned children.
More than one million Palestinian women and girls in Gaza have almost no access to food or water, with disease growing amidst inhumane living conditions.
Access to clean water is especially critical for breastfeeding mothers and pregnant women, who have higher daily water and caloric intake requirements. Many women and girls are also unable to manage their menstrual hygiene with dignity and safety.
UN Women estimates that 10 million disposable menstrual pads or four million reusable sanitary pads are required each month to cover the needs of the 690,000 women and girls in Gaza.
“More than ten thousand women have been killed so far, of which an estimated six thousand are mothers. Women who have survived the bombing are suffering daily starvation, sickness, and constant fear. The war in Gaza is no doubt a war on women, who are paying a heavy price for a war not of their making”, said Susanne Mikhail, Regional Director of UN Women in the Arab States in a media briefing in Geneva.
The UN Women assessment focuses on the lack of access to water, sanitation, and hygiene (Wash) services, which are vital to women's health, dignity, safety, and privacy.
Many of the women who spoke to the UN Women team enumerated the challenges they continue to encounter as the war rages.
"In Gaza, we (women) cannot meet our simplest and most basic needs: eating well, drinking safe water, accessing a toilet, having (sanitary) pads, taking a shower, … changing our clothes,” a Gazan woman told the team.
World leaders, feminists and gender activists have been calling for an end to the conflict, which has so far killed 31,184 Palestinians and seen 72,889 injured according to the local health authorities.
As of 12 March, 247 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza with 1,475 injured since the start of the ground operation, Israeli army data shows.
Both Palestinian and Israeli women activists have, on several occasions, called for end to bloodshed but their plea has not been heeded by the two warring parties.
Some of the rights organisations have been offering help to women and girls displaced by the ongoing war.
Global Fund for Women has, for example, directed over $6 million to women’s rights organisations in the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel.
The organisation has funded 130 organisations in Israel and Palestine, most often led by Palestinian women that are working for peace and security.
UN Women is also working with Palestinian women’s organisations, and partners within the humanitarian spaces to advocate for the rights and needs of women and girls, and to deliver urgently needed assistance.
In Gaza, UN Women has reached almost 100,000 women and their families with food, blankets, winter clothes, soap, diapers, and sanitary kits. Tens of thousands more items have been at the border crossings for weeks. This is only a fraction of what women and girls in Gaza need.
Last month, the UN released a report on the ongoing conflict, which also lifted the lid on the horrific impact it is having on women and girls. The findings of the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict depicted scenes in Gaza as 'an apocalypse of dead bodies’.
The investigators recalled witnessing young girls who had been stripped, mutilated, and left on the ground with their legs spread out and their pelvic bones broken as a result of severe rapes.
They also witnessed heads with no bodies, cut-off privates of women. The sexual violence indicates that female hostages face unique risks, with long-term physical and mental implications.
Pramila Patten, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, led the official visit to Israel from January 29 to February 14, to gather, analyse and verify reports of sexual violence.
“What I witnessed in Israel were scenes of unspeakable violence perpetrated with shocking brutality,” Ms Patten recalled. The team met with families of hostages and members of communities displaced from several areas.
It conducted confidential interviews with 34 individuals, including survivors and witnesses of the October 7, attack, released hostages, first responders and health and service providers.
