GAZA, (PIC)
As the world celebrates International Women’s Day, Palestinian women in the Gaza Strip face a deadly Israeli war as the Israeli occupation forces have ruthlessly resorted to killing, injuring, displacing, and arresting them.
Throughout 154 days of the devastating war, Israeli forces have turned Palestinian women into targets, subjecting them to bombing, killing, arrests, and the violation of their dignity, without any regard for international law.
The grim toll
The Gaza Government Media Office (GMO) has released alarming statistics on the impact of the war on Gaza’s women; occupation forces have killed 8,900 Palestinian women and injured more than 23,000, while 2,100 went missing and over half a million displaced.
The International Women’s Day for Palestinian women, especially in Gaza, serves as a stark example of the humiliation, killing, shooting, and torture they endure, forcing them to flee rather than being celebrated and honored, according to the GMO.
The occupation army has demolished thousands of homes, including those with Palestinian women inside. More than 2,100 Palestinian women are still under the rubble or their fate remains unknown due to this brutal Israeli war.
According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, 60,000 pregnant women are living in harsh and extremely difficult conditions, lacking basic healthcare and medical requirements. Among them are hundreds who have lost their children, newborns, or fetuses due to Israeli bombing, killing, and fear.
More than half a million Palestinian women displaced in the Gaza Strip face extremely difficult lives, unable to obtain their basic rights. They struggle to access food, experiencing famine in all Gaza governorates, particularly in the northern and Gaza governorates. They search for food, medicine, and shelter but cannot provide all of these amidst this brutal war.
During its ground offensive, the occupation army arrested dozens of Palestinian women, subjecting them to physical and psychological torture, mistreatment, and humiliation amid terrible international silence.
Testimonies from released prisoners revealed that female prisoners were subjected to nudity, sexual harassment, brutal torture, and deprived of sleep and food.
Every day of war … 63 women killed
The United Nations Women’s Agency also issued statistics on women in Gaza amid the war, including catastrophic numbers.
In its recent statistics released at the beginning of March, the UN agency warned that “every day the war continues in Gaza, at the current rate, an average of 63 women will continue to be killed (daily).”
It added that Israel kills about 37 women in Gaza every day, destroying their families and diminishing the protection of their children.
Israeli starvation practices also add to the burden on Gaza women, according to the UN Women’s Agency.
According to the agency, 4 out of 5 women in Gaza (84 percent) stated that their families eat half the food compared to what they used to eat before the war.
Mothers and adult women undertake the task of procuring food, but they are the last and least to eat in the family.
The UN agency added that 4 out of 5 women in Gaza reported that at least one family member had to forgo meals during the past week.
In 95 percent of these cases, mothers do not eat and skip at least one meal to feed their children.
Nearly 9 out of 10 women (87 percent) reported greater difficulty in accessing food compared to men.
Some women now resort to extreme adaptation measures, such as searching for food under the rubble or in garbage dumps, according to the agency.
The UN agency stated that 10 out of 12 women’s organizations surveyed in Gaza are partially operational and provide basic emergency response services.
It warned: “Unless there is an immediate ceasefire for humanitarian reasons, more people will die in the coming days and weeks.”
It emphasized the need to stop the killing, bombing, and destruction of basic infrastructure in Gaza, and for humanitarian aid to enter the enclave and all its areas immediately.
Great psychological pressures
Gazan women also face significant psychological pressures, finding it difficult to obtain sanitary pads during menstruation due to their scarcity, which embarrasses them and exposes them to embarrassing situations.
According to recent statistics from the United Nations, there are over 690,000 women and girls in Gaza of menstruating age in urgent need of sanitary pads during their menstrual cycle, in addition to the need for clean water, toilets, and privacy.
This comes as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said in a statement issued in late January that, “unfortunately, it cannot meet the high demand for personal hygiene supplies in Gaza, as stocks have either run out completely or reached very low levels.”
The scarcity of these supplies puts women and girls at risk of reproductive and urinary tract infections, as well as other health risks, according to health officials in the enclave.
All of this has led the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women to say, “The situation of Palestinian women is the test in which the international community has failed.”
She emphasized the need for the fighting to stop and for aid to enter the Strip, holding Israel responsible as an occupying force.
