Palestinian women under fire in Gaza
Palestinian history carries within it images and features of the social and national roles in which Palestinian women consolidated their solidarity to the concerns of daily living, during the periods of British and then Israeli military rule, and proved themselves in light of the direct confrontation with the occupier, a strength that goes beyond the female body, in which she used the tools of rejection of oppression and occupation and adherence to survival despite the difficulty of what is possible and ordinary.
The National Library confirms that the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023 does not stray far in its exclusionary and Zionist essence from the issue of depriving the right to life of Palestinians in their places of residence in the Gaza Strip, especially women, and the systematic procedural policy that is continuing to destroy and erase the formation of the Palestinian local society through displaying images that are different from the prevailing and usual, and overturning its social roles rooted in the mold of family responsibilities.
The eighth of March this year brings more bloody features for the women of the besieged Gaza Strip. A genocidal war stands between women and their International Day, and between them and the basic rights of human beings are millions of obstructive steps, and an international law that deals with human rights as temporary spoils, not as sustainable gains that cannot be negotiated.
The danger to women increases during this genocide, especially since their percentage amounts to 49% of the total population of the Gaza Strip, which amounts to about 2.2 million people, and based on statistics issued by the United Nations; The occupation killed about 9,000 women since the beginning of this war on Gaza until the beginning of this March, and it is expected that the number will exceed that. Reports indicate that many women are still under the rubble, while about 63 women are killed on average every day the war continues, including about 37 mothers.
The legal reality of Palestinian women under occupation
The National Library indicated that the reality of Palestinian women and the international laws regarding the status of women during wars and conflicts around the world are at stake, between the credibility of the legal text and the horror of life, and the fragility of the legal position that Palestinian women can rely on, despite the awful crimes committed against them during their journey from war to what comes after the war with deterioration in health, livelihood, psychological and security.
The Security Council issued its Resolution 1325 in 2000 regarding the status of women, peace and security, to add an international touch to the protection of women in places of conflict and war. This law came as an important turning point in its necessary assessment of women’s suffering, and their exposure to psychological and physical attacks. However, it does not guarantee Palestinian women who are under occupation any protection, and does not include the most basic internationally agreed upon life rights, the most prominent of which is the right to health.
In a legal approach, member of the General Secretariat of the General Union of Palestinian Women, Rima Nazzal, explained that this decision “does not directly address the right to health, but rather addresses the protection of women in times of war, and the decisions subsequent to Resolution 1325 concerned Arab women in general not Palestinian women in particular,” which puts us before many pressing questions, the most important of them are:
- The scale of the health disaster that affects every Palestinian woman in the Gaza Strip, whether pregnant or breastfeeding or women who suffer from chronic diseases.
- The prospects of international law in protecting Palestinian women and improving their psychological, health and humanitarian situation in light of the occupation’s aggression that has been ongoing since October 7.
- Forced displacement and lack of forms of life in the most systematic campaign for the physical elimination of Palestinian women since the Nakba.
Direct Targeting
Within the fierce and unprecedented attack to intellectually liquidate creative women in the Gaza Strip, a wide segment of inspiring and creative women were targeted through the deadly aggression, including musicians and visual artists, as well as poets and writers, community activists, in addition to female academics and researchers at universities where their bodies are still under the rubble till this day.
Women working in the health sector faced difficult and complex psychological and health conditions, they counter death everywhere, in the corridors, squares and hospitals while performing their work, as well as the continuous sacrifice and work since the beginning of the war, and staying for long periods outside their homes, they also lost their husbands and children as martyrs, and buried them without saying goodbye.
Wherever there were working women, there were life difficulties, there is only a step between providing a living and death, female journalists were witnesses and martyrs during their coverage of the war, and they were the means and the news.
Women in Gaza, the humanitarian and social conditions of survival and displacement
more than 1.9 million people in Gaza were forced to flee, equivalent to 85% of the total population, among them are around a million women and girls. Women’s suffering is rapidly increasing due to the loss of their husbands, sons and parents in this vicious war, the Israeli occupation is currently using a starvation policy as weapon against Palestinians, this policy forces women to do hard work in order to provide food, psychological and health needs for their families.
Mrs. AS narrates her suffering during displacement, emphasizing the difficulty of life in tents for the elderly, these tents do not provide the most basic requirements of human dignity, and in her words when addressing her son who lives in Tunisia, describing her daily suffering in the tent: “I wish I can lean my back against a wall, I’m so tired of living in a tent, I want a place to lean my back against”
The United Nations Population Fund confirmed that the percentage of pregnant women reached 45,000 pregnant women and 68,000 breastfeeding women in the Gaza Strip, who face the risk of malnutrition, anemia, bleeding and death, and many of them are forced to give birth in unsafe and uncomfortable conditions, whether in shelter centers or in their homes or in the streets or at checkpoints, without anesthesia, sterilization, or medical follow-up. The risks of infection, bleeding, rupture, preeclampsia, and other complications that may take their lives or the lives of their children increase, especially with most hospitals out of service as a result of the war, in addition to the inability of breastfeeding mothers to breastfeed their babies due to the increasing risk of famine and lack of formula milk, which led to the death of many infants. Moreover, more than 690,000 women and girls in puberty are missing essential and hygiene supplies.
A joint statement signed by United Nations rapporteurs described the human rights violations reported against women and girls in Palestine as “horrifying,”. it was reported that at least two Palestinian female detainees were raped, while others were threatened with rape and sexual violence. The statement also indicated that detained Palestinian women and girls were subjected to several forms of sexual assault, such as being stripped of their clothes and searched by male Israeli army officers.
While Palestinian prisoner institutions monitored the occupation forces’ arrest of about 200 women from the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war, some of them were transferred to “Damoun” prison with other female prisoners from the West Bank, their conditions deteriorating in an unprecedented way as time goes by. The continuation of torture, abuse, humiliation and revenge, in addition to the policy of strip searches, sexual harassment, threats of rape, and the policy of starvation and extreme cold, all of which increased the severity of the tragedy. Moreover, none of the human rights institutions have been able to monitor any details about the female prisoners of Gaza detained in Israeli camps, about whom the occupation refuses to disclose any information, and they are subject to the crime of enforced disappearance. The occupation also refuses to allow legal teams to visit them, and the prison administration claims that they are not under its management.