Women in Gaza are living their worst nightmares – “ I want to go back to my life before the war, to my privacy, my home ”

Cover image by Abed Zagout – Anadolu Agency.

Israel has killed more than 12,000 women and displaced hundreds of thousands of others. Most of them are suffering from malnutrition and the deterioration of their psychological state due to the horrific war they are witnessing. Many women have lost their lives, their homes, their loved ones. Some lost limbs. But genocide has other ugly, sometimes invisible, faces. In addition to the blood, body parts, and shattered dreams, the war has robbed the women of Gaza of their dignity. Its heavy shadow and the nightmarish reality have taken over women’s daily lives. Those who have survived death did not escape displacement. Since October 2023, approximately two million people, among them nearly one million women and girls, have been displaced, often to relatives’ homes, schools, or UNRWA facilities that are now overcrowded beyond any capacity. Yet we journalists rarely shed light on this suffering. In a war that claims the lives of children, journalists, paramedics, doctors, and humanitarian workers, discussing the daily suffering of women seems secondary to the priorities of news coverage of the most violent war of the 21^st century. We are witnessing ethnic cleansing.

“I keep getting displaced”

Displacement and war have had a profound impact on the lives of women who have survived. Access to bathrooms is difficult, and it is impossible to sleep in a room alone. This has forced many hijabi women to keep their hijabs on 24 hours a day, seven days a week, despite the sweltering heat and humidity. They have no private spaces. Oula, a young, 27-year-old engineer from Gaza, says, “We’ve been living through very dark times for months now. I had a quiet, beautiful home, I spent a whole year looking over its construction, the placement of every single stone. Israel destroyed it in seconds. I had chosen the best furniture, the most beautiful paintings. My home was my refuge. Now I keep getting displaced from one place to another. I haven’t taken off my hijab in months because we are living with strangers. We keep getting displaced from one house to another in search of safety… I know that I am better off than others—I haven’t lost my husband or son, thank God, but I did lose my home and my peace. I want to go back to having privacy, to my home, to all those little details that I loved. It all feels like a dream now, compared to the horrors, the blood, the corpses we see. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to who I was before October 2023. Part of my humanity has been destroyed.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever go back to who I was before October 2023. Part of my humanity has been destroyed.”

In Gaza, taking a shower once a week has become an unattainable luxury. Some women have shaved their heads for fear of scalp diseases and infections. Forced shaving is a painful decision for any woman to take, especially since, in Arab culture, a woman’s hair is the crowning glory of her beauty, a symbol of her femininity. But in Gaza, women have been forced to shave their heads. A displaced Palestinian mother, who preferred to remain anonymous, tells us, “In Gaza, beauty doesn’t matter anymore. The only thing that matters is staying alive. I was forced to shave my hair. I cried while I did it. I even shaved my daughter’s and son’s hair because we don’t have enough water to wash it. The little we do have is barely enough for drinking and survival. We did it to protect ourselves…” She adds, “We left our home after it was bombed and completely destroyed. We took refuge in this school with hundreds of other families. We all share the few bathrooms—there are too few of them compared to how many we are. There is no water, and if we get any, it’s only enough to drink or cook with.”

Laila, a 22-year-old Gazan woman, says, “I’ve always loved change, and cutting my hair used to give me a sense of vitality and renewal. But with the war, we had to leave our home to escape the Israeli bombardment. We keep moving from place to place under intense shelling, gunfire, destruction. Our lives are the farthest thing from normal… We no longer have any of the basic needs we used to have at home, starting with water. So now we have to shower less. The situation is extremely difficult. People are dying of hunger, thirst, and sniper fire. Talking about shaving our hair feels silly, it’s not even secondary news. I’m lucky to be alive. Yes, I shaved my hair, but now the priority is to survive the killing, the disease, the hunger… Tomorrow, the war will end, and if I make it, I’ll rebuild my home and plant some flowers. My hair will grow back.” 

Women are the sole breadwinners when their fathers or husbands are killed

Women’s suffering in Gaza takes on many shapes: from the lack of basic necessities such as sanitary pads and other essentials to malnutrition, giving birth without anesthesia, having to walk distances of up to 25 kilometers to reach barely functioning hospitals that lack medical equipment… This is in addition to the burdens of famine and the stifling blockade. Women are forced to be the first to give up their share of food so that their children or relatives are not deprived of the morsels that could save their lives. In the midst of all this, women endure hardships they have never known before: collecting and chopping firewood to cook food in the absence of the most basic necessities of life, living in tents that don’t protect against the cold or heat, living in the total absence of privacy and safety. In many families, they become the sole breadwinner when their fathers or husbands are killed. The psychological effects of this violent war have left them with no room to catch their breath; the shock of displacement, the loss of homes, the killing of loved ones, the specter of death that haunts them at every moment… Yet they try to survive, continuously, and to be strong for their families and children.

“I’m lucky to be alive. Yes, I shaved my hair, but now the priority is to survive the killing, the disease, the hunger… Tomorrow, the war will end, and if I make it, I’ll rebuild my home and plant some flowers. My hair will grow back.”

In its report published last May, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights revealed painful details about the conditions of women living in temporary shelters in the Gaza Strip. These places were supposed to offer them safety, but they have been transformed into harsh environments that allow them no dignity or privacy, environments where physical and psychological risks have multiplied.

The report shows how women and girls have found themselves trapped in overcrowded classrooms or tents with no partitions or walls. Simply using the bathroom becomes an embarrassing and dangerous task, as women are forced to share unsafe facilities with men. These harsh conditions not only restrict movement and cause embarrassment but also impact women’s physical and mental health. Breastfeeding mothers struggle to find a suitable place to feed their babies, which could lead some to stop breastfeeding. This negatively impacts their health and that of their children. Girls on their periods and postpartum women face compounded challenges due to the lack of sanitary supplies and safe, clean spaces, forcing some to resort to unhealthy alternatives that threaten their physical and mental health. Pregnant women face additional hardship, forced to wait in long queues at inadequate health facilities or travel long distances to access limited medical services, increasing the risk of serious complications.

The report also examines the profound psychological impact of the lack of privacy and security. Women live in a state of constant stress, and they suffer from sleep disturbances and chronic anxiety due to the constant fear of assault or intrusion. These fears push some women into isolation, exacerbating their feelings of loneliness and depression. These centers lack the psychosocial support services that could mitigate these effects. More alarmingly, the humanitarian response in these areas, as the report demonstrates, lacks a gender perspective. While calls are made to provide food, water, and medical assistance, the protection of privacy and safety is almost never brought up, which reflects flawed humanitarian intervention priorities. The report argues that this neglect is not only an error in planning but is a direct violation of the rights guaranteed to women under international humanitarian law, which obligates parties to the conflict to ensure a safe environment that preserves human dignity.

In this context, the report emphasizes the responsibility of the international community not only to pressure for a ceasefire, but also to push for a more just and equitable humanitarian response for women, by taking urgent measures to provide designated safe spaces for them with separate health facilities and measures to protect them from gender-based violence. The report also recommends providing specialized psychological and social support services and involving women in the formulation of policies and the identification of needs to ensure a response that reflects their actual reality.