2024 has seen women and girls in Gaza face unprecedented attacks on their rights

It is almost impossible to summarise or convey in words the unimaginable hardship that has been inflicted on women and girls in Gaza over the last 12 months. Gaza has become the most dangerous place for women in the world, a place where they face the daily threat of death and starvation, oppression and the denial of their basic human rights. Each day brings a renewed struggle for survival, with women unable to access water, food, sanitation items, warm clothes and medicine. They are losing their lives; they are sick, hungry and exhausted.

The war in Gaza is a war on women and girls. In 2024, the Israeli military’s offensive has continued to kill women and girls at a horrifying rate: according to the UN, women and children make up nearly 70% of those killed, and 75% of those injured. These women are not numbers: they have children, families, dreams and friends.

Many of those who have survived experience unbearable suffering caused by the loss of their children, husbands, relatives and neighbours. Thousands of women who have become widows now face the sole responsibility of caring for their children and running their households. Yet despite their loss, Palestinian women are the backbone of their communities and continue to show incredible strength as they fight for survival.  

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One of the most painful things for women in Gaza to endure is the repeated displacement which has turned their lives into hell. With nine out of ten people in Gaza displaced, most women and girls now find themselves living in tents or makeshift shelters constructed from curtains, sheets or any fabric they can find, which offer little to no protection from the winter cold or rain.

Successive evacuation orders – which currently cover around 79% of Gaza – have forced them into ever smaller areas of land where the overcrowding is unbearable, and infrastructure cannot cope: in some places, the collapse of the sanitation system means that raw sewage is flowing between the tents. With nowhere safe from the bombing, women are exhausted and terrified.  

Women and girls have no privacy and, at the same time, face increased risk of harassment, abuse and violence, which – as is always the case in times of crisis – is rising. Trying to manage their periods when they have no period products, no soap, limited or no water, and using the toilet or shower can involve hours of queueing, has become a monthly struggle.

The lack of water has left some women unable to shower for weeks, while many have resorted to cutting their hair as it is so difficult to keep it clean – just one of the painful tactics to cope with the harsh conditions that women are having to employ. Keeping themselves and their living spaces clean is impossible and contagious skin diseases and pneumonia are spreading rapidly.

Gaza’s growing hunger crisis has reached a critical point. With the food system all but destroyed, everyone in Gaza relies on aid to survive, yet the amount of humanitarian relief entering the territory has plummeted: in October just 37 trucks went into Gaza on average per day, the lowest level yet in 2024.

This has resulted in an alarming shortage of food, with the situation most dire in the besieged north, where virtually no aid has entered since early October and bakeries and kitchens have been forced to close. In a rare and concerning move, the Famine Review Committee has issued an alert warning that starvation and malnutrition were ‘rapidly increasing’ in the north and said the threshold for famine may have already been crossed. Everywhere too in Gaza, the food supply was sharply deteriorating, according to the alert.

For pregnant women, the lack of food can have tragic consequences: doctors at our partner hospital in northern Gaza, Al-Awda, have reported a rise in miscarriages as a result of malnutrition and stress among women. New mothers have told ActionAid that they are unable to breastfeed their babies because they are so malnourished and thirsty. Women have resorted to using animal feed as flour and cooking dried leaves from the ground just to have something to feed their children; most eat last and least as they prioritise their families’ needs.

The near collapse of Gaza’s healthcare system has particularly impacted pregnant women in Gaza,180 of whom are estimated to give birth each day. Shortages of medical supplies have left women having to undergo caesareans without anaesthetic and vital medicines. Many women have been forced to give birth in filthy shelters or tents because the intensity of the bombing meant it was too dangerous for them to travel to hospital. Amid dire fuel shortages, doctors have had to make heartbreaking decisions about which sick newborn babies to prioritise for the few incubators they are able to keep running.

In every possible way, women and girls are Gaza are facing an assault on their rights and their basic human dignity. And as 2025 approaches, the picture is worrying. Most alarming is the prospect of the Israeli government’s ban on UNRWA – the largest provider of humanitarian aid and services in Gaza – coming into force in January. The extent to which this would prove to be an absolute catastrophe for Gaza’s starving and beleaguered population is impossible to overstate: it would be a death sentence.

Even if a ceasefire were secured today, rebuilding Gaza will take years. More than two thirds of buildings have been destroyed or damaged, including almost 90% of schools, and entire neighbourhoods razed to the ground. Recovering from the physical and mental scars inflicted by this crisis will take even longer: more than 22,500 people have suffered life changing injuries, and many more have experienced the heartbreak and trauma of losing at least one loved one. How will women be able to return to their daily lives and routines, when their homes are destroyed and their loved ones killed? 

Yet one thing is certain: in 2025, just as in 2024 and all the years beforehand, Palestinian women and girls will continue to resist the attacks on their fundamental rights and freedoms and continue demanding justice and accountability.

If there is any hope at all to be found in the appalling events of the past year, it is the incredible strength and resilience shown by so many women – from the mothers who have taken in orphans to raise as their own to the medical workers and humanitarians risking their own lives daily to support their people.

I continue to feel awed by the incredible work my colleagues at ActionAid and our partners in Gaza are doing in the most appalling circumstances, from running a hotline and safe spaces for women who have experienced violence, to distributing vital essentials like food and period products.

But they need your solidarity and support. In 2025, people around the world must keep demanding that their leaders fight for a permanent ceasefire now. In the UK, the government can and must do more to try and put a stop to this war – that includes halting all arms export licenses to the Israeli government and imposing sanctions. 2025 must be the year this crisis ends, so that the long journey to recovery, justice and accountability can begin.

You can support ActionAid’s work in Gaza by donating here.

Riham Jafari is advocacy and communications coordinator at ActionAid Palestine  

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